"The duty we owe to history is to rewrite it," said Oscar Wilde. As a Russian, I am familiar with rewriting history. The Soviet Union spent a century touching up the warts on Lenin's nose, revising harvest statistics, and making the dying Yuri Andropov look less cadaverous. But in dealing with Stalin--dead 50 years today-- most of us now rewrite history by pretending that a chunk of it never happened.
"The duty we owe to history is to rewrite it," said Oscar Wilde. As a Russian, I am familiar with rewriting history. The Soviet Union spent a century touching up the warts on Lenin's nose, revising harvest statistics, and making the dying Yuri Andropov look less cadaverous. But in dealing with Stalin--dead 50 years today-- most of us now rewrite history by pretending that a chunk of it never happened.