Film Spurs Russia to Squelch Criticism of Soviet War Tactics

[jimmy olsen]

I came across the July issue of WWII Magazine at my local Supercuts this morning after church. Odd place to find that magazine. Anyways I came across this article, not surprising, just another indication how fucked up Russian political culture is.

http://www.historynet.com/film-spurs-russia-to-squelch-criticism-of-soviet-war-tactics.htm

Film Spurs Russia to Squelch Criticism of Soviet War Tactics

By Justin Ewers | World War II News  | 0 comments  | Print This Post  | Email This Post

JULY 2009 — A television documentary about the Red Army's enormous death toll during World War II has drawn a fierce backlash in Russia, where the "Great Patriotic War" has been viewed in recent decades as a time of noble sacrifice. The film, Rzhev: Marshal Zhukov's Unknown Battle, aired on Russian television in February. It tells the story of the little-known battles of Rzhev—a town on the upper Volga River—in 1942 and 1943, in which more than a million Soviet soldiers were killed. Along with battlefield reenactments, the film includes interviews with veterans on both sides, notably several German survivors who said the Red Army's human-wave attacks used Soviet troops as little more than "cannon fodder."

This depiction of Soviet tactics has infuriated many Russians, some of whom demanded the arrest of the film's narrator, Russian news anchor Alexei Pivovarov, calling him a traitor. Several high-ranking members of the Russian government have even called for a new law, based on Holocaust denial legislation in Germany, that would criminalize any reference to the Soviet Union not winning the war. Several legislators, with the support of the Russian prosecutor general, have agreed to present the idea to the Russian parliament this year.

"It has become the fashion to smear the heroic deeds of the Soviet people and to defame the Soviet way of life," said Ivan Korbutov, a retired general who heads the Russian council of war veterans. "Such actions, orchestrated at the behest of the West to discredit our glorious past, must be brought to court and the journalists responsible punished."

Tensions have been flaring throughout Eastern Europe in recent years over some of the lingering grievances of the Second World War, but many outsiders are baffled by the furious response to the new documentary, which most observers consider to be fair and balanced.

"The name Rzhev should resound in the consciousness of Russians in the same way that the Somme does for Britons," Adrian Blomfield, the Moscow correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, wrote in a recent issue of the Moscow News Weekly. "This cataclysmic death toll was largely the result of Josef Stalin's disdain for the lives of his own men and of the atrocious bungling of Soviet commanders. Yet most Russians know little of the Rzhev battles because they have largely been airbrushed from official history."

That airbrushing, it seems, is likely to continue.

A similar article by TIME

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1896927,00.html

Russia Moves to Ban Criticism of WWII Win
By John Wendle / Moscow Friday, May. 08, 2009

For the past two weeks, posters celebrating the Soviet triumph in World War II have been taped to the windows of every store in Russia, proudly displaying the date "9 May" and the orange and black striped ribbon of victory. Red banners have been draped across the fronts of apartment buildings all along the central Moscow parade route. And in the lead-up to the country's annual Victory Day celebrations, the Kremlin has made a move that it touts as yet another display of Russia's patriotism and pride: the government has announced that it is considering passing a law to criminalize statements and acts that deny the Soviets won World War II, or claim it used poor tactics in battle or did not liberate Eastern Europe.
   
The proposed law is seen by Kremlin-watchers as further evidence of Moscow's continued suppression of dissent at a time when the domestic popularity of President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has slipped thanks to the economic crisis, and amid international fears of growing Russian militarism after its successful war against Georgia last summer. (See TIME's special package on the Russia-Georgia war. )

"I believe the Duma should enact a law that would criminalize the denial of the Soviet victory in World War II," said Sergei Shoigu, head of the powerful Ministry of Emergency Situations and co-chairman of the supreme council of Putin's United Russia party, during a speech to veterans in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) in February, according to reports by Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Shoigu's call for the new law came after Russian television channel NTV broadcast a documentary about the Battles of Rzhev, a series of offensives launched by Soviet forces against the Germans between January 1942 and March 1943. The documentary raised popular anger, especially among WWII veterans, after it exposed the number of Soviet soldiers killed, which was much higher than most Russians believed — around a million compared to around 500,000 on the Nazi side — and presented a negative interpretation of Soviet tactics by, for example, showing how shocked German soldiers who had fought in the battles were at the way Soviet troops were thrown into the fight with little regard for their lives. (See pictures from World War II.)

Valery Ryazansky, a United Russia Duma MP and a chief supporter of the bill, said on Thursday he hoped the law would appear before the Duma before June 22 — Russia's Day of Remembrance and Mourning. "Those who attempt to interpret the outcome of World War II, to turn everything upside down, to represent those who liberated countries from the Nazi invaders as subjugators" will be punished, he said.

Violators of the new addition to the criminal code would face a fine of up to around $9,200 or up to three years in prison. If the perpetrator is a government official and uses his status to break the law, the fine is increased to more than $15,300, a five-year term in prison and the deprivation of the right to occupy certain government positions, said Ryazansky.

In an Orwellian twist, the drafters of the bill, which is being called the law "Against the Rehabilitation of Nazism," have said they modeled it on the various forms of Holocaust-denier legislation that exists in Austria, Germany, Belgium and France. But critics point out that the law banning denial of the Holocaust is designed to protect the memory of the Jews and other ethnic groups killed by Nazi forces and their supporters. Russia's new bill, however, would stop anyone reexamining a history fraught with half-truths and lies propagated by the Soviet government, then carried into the present on the backs of unrevised text books and a general aversion to looking too closely the country's past. (See pictures of Hitler's rise to power.)

Liberals in Russia fear the law may punish and silence new — and possibly more accurate — interpretations of the country's history and solidify the government's control of the past. But the real aim of the law may be to provide the Kremlin with another rhetorical tool with which to attack governments of former Soviet Republics and Eastern Bloc countries that have increasingly moved towards the West. The most recent example — which is still making waves in Russia — was the 2007 row in Estonia over the moving of the statue of a Red Army soldier from a central Tallinn square to a nearby war cemetery, a decision which triggered riots and caused an international incident. (Read: "Estonians Under Siege in Moscow.")

When Russia's law "Against the Rehabilitation of Nazism" is passed, "the presidents of some countries who denied [the Soviet victory] would not be able to travel with impunity in our country. And the mayors of some cities, before demolishing sites, would think before they act," said Shoigu, according to RIA Novosti.

According to a poll of 1,600 Russians released on Wednesday by the Center for the Study of Public Opinion, 60% of Russians say they agree that denying the Soviets won World War II should be criminalized, while 77% believe the Soviet Union liberated Eastern Europe. On Saturday, thousands of troops, with over 100 tanks, troop carriers and mobile ballistic missile batteries, will parade through Red Square and the center of Moscow as more than 70 aircraft and helicopters fly overhead. But as Russians celebrate their victory over the Nazis, they may also be celebrating the defeat of freedom of speech

[Habbaku]

Are there actually people who deny the Soviets won the war? 

[The Brain]

Hmmm, have I called for the destruction of Russia yet? I have? Well, then there is little else to add I guess.

[CountDeMoney]

I came across the July issue of WWII Magazine at my local Supercuts this morning after church.

Not very Christian of you.  Fag.

[jimmy olsen]

I came across the July issue of WWII Magazine at my local Supercuts this morning after church.

Not very Christian of you.  Fag.

Getting a haircut after church is a sin now? 

[Grey Fox]

I tought doing anything was prohibited?

Church :puke:

[jimmy olsen]

I tought doing anything was prohibited?

Church :puke:

Maybe in the 17th century, get with the times.

[Josquius]

The banning mention of the soviets not winning the war is a worrying one- through that avenue you could well see strategy games outlawed. IIRC Paradox got into trouble with the Chinese some time back for its depiction of China in HOI.

[besuchov]

Are there actually people who deny the Soviets won the war? 

Im guessing denying the soviet victory would include removing statues honoring the soviets in former soviet occupied countries as well as calling what these countries were subjected to anything else than "liberation". Things like claiming german woman were raped by their liberators might also come into question im guessing....

[CountDeMoney]

I came across the July issue of WWII Magazine at my local Supercuts this morning after church.

Not very Christian of you.  Fag.

Getting a haircut after church is a sin now? 

Reading war porn after church is.  Fag.

[Razgovory]

The banning mention of the soviets not winning the war is a worrying one- through that avenue you could well see strategy games outlawed. IIRC Paradox got into trouble with the Chinese some time back for its depiction of China in HOI.

That's not a problem.  Since the Russians don't actually buy the games.

[Razgovory]

Anyway, how can you commit treason against a country that hasn't existed for over 15 years.

[jimmy olsen]

Anyway, how can you commit treason against a country that hasn't existed for over 15 years.

Or has it?

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1603735/soviet_union/

[alfred russel]

I tought doing anything was prohibited?

Church :puke:

Maybe in the 17th century, get with the times.

The real sin was going to supercuts.

[jimmy olsen]

I tought doing anything was prohibited?

Church :puke:

Maybe in the 17th century, get with the times.

The real sin was going to supercuts.

The old barber I used to go to retired.