There is no alternative history. Like a national idea
How long have I waited for the state to deign to remember the honor and dignity of its defenders. He will remember the old people who, at the cost of their health, and sometimes their lives, defended him from a terrible enemy. He will remember the guys who chased terrorists in the Caucasus and their honor.
I watched the film "Bastards" and realized that just now, together with me, another (or maybe more) future criminal came out of the cinema hall, convinced that the criminals also contributed to the Victory. Read in the news speech of another Baltic or Polish politician about the atrocities of Soviet soldiers in their countries and realized that he had just arrived in the regiment of Western liberals.
I watched on TV how another flock of teenagers fry sausages on the Eternal Flame, fully confident that there was nothing wrong with that. And the feat of those for whom this Eternal Flame is lit is just communist propaganda. I watched a film about how in besieged Leningrad someone ate from the belly, celebrated birthdays and so on, and I realized that this was a spit to the soul of all Leningraders. And those who survived or did not survive the blockade, and those who already live in St. Petersburg, and those who will live in this city later, after us ...
In my memory, the NKVD troops and everyone who wore this uniform was made monsters. At the same time, somehow forgetting that most of the most famous partisan detachments were just parts of the NKVD. They forgot that "SMERSH" was created on the basis of the Directorate of Special Departments of the NKVD, and one of its parts, along with the SMERSH of the Ministry of Defense and the Navy, remained subordinate to Beria.
In my memory, they made political instructors cowards. Little petty men who did nothing but identify those who were conducting hostile conversations, and drove the soldiers into the attack, while they themselves sat in the dugouts. They did it already when it became known who is depicted in the famous photograph "Combat". Even then, when in the memoirs of many participants in the war, political instructors were written about as those who were the first to attack, who, by their example, raised the fighters ...
Much has been done vile in my memory. I live for a long time, I saw and see a lot. And now, finally, he waited for an act from his chosen ones. On May 5, the head of the Duma Committee on Culture Elena Yampolskaya, First Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Alexander Zhukov and Senator Alexei Pushkov submitted to the State Duma a bill banning publicly identifying the goals and actions of the USSR and Nazi Germany in World War II.
Our past is our future
Memory needs to be protected. Defend because our past is the root of our future. The present and the future grow out of the past. On the example of a neighboring, once brotherly, state, today we see how quickly the present is changing, it is worth slightly changing the past. How the destinies of people change, how people quickly renounce their old people, how they renounce their own country.
We saw with our own eyes what many science fiction writers wrote about the existence of parallel worlds. The land is the same, the cities are the same, people seem to be the same, and the world is not at all the same to which we are accustomed. People are not the same. The state is not that. And already few people remember the recent brotherhood of peoples.
“It is forbidden in a public speech, in a publicly displayed work, in the media or using information and telecommunication networks, including the Internet, the identification of the goals, decisions and actions of the leadership of the USSR, the command, Soviet military personnel with the goals, decisions and actions of the leadership of Nazi Germany, the command , servicemen of Nazi Germany and the "axis" countries <...> as well as denial of the decisive role of the Soviet people in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the humanitarian mission of the USSR during the liberation of European countries ",
- says the text of the document. It was proposed to make amendments to the law “On the perpetuation of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945”.
Even the fact that our elected officials reacted so strainedly to the direct instructions of President Putin, which was announced at the meeting of the Presidential Council for Culture and Arts on October 27, 2020, is somehow forgotten. There is an understanding of the underlying struggle, the pressure that the authors of the amendments to the law experienced, but no offense. The draft law already exists!
In an interview with IA REGNUM, Alexander Zhukov and Alexey Pushkov spoke very well about the current situation:
“Recently, in the media, including, unfortunately, Russian ones, unsubstantiated generalizing derogatory statements are regularly published and broadcast on the air, identifying the goals, decisions and actions during the Great Patriotic War of the leadership, command and military personnel of the USSR with the goals, decisions and the actions of the leadership, command and military personnel of Nazi Germany. "
To put it bluntly, a simple question arises, which is very important to get an answer to today. To understand how to act in the near future. Who is to blame for the time it took to develop the amendments? Let me emphasize the amendments to the law "On the perpetuation of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
Laws requiring huge financial investments and changing life in entire regions are being developed and adopted faster. And amendments that do not require any investment, amendments, the need for which many people have spoken and written about over the years, have been developed for six months ... Who are these amendments up against? ..
Alternative Russians began to stir
I was waiting. I was waiting for the one who will start the fight for the "truth of the war", for an alternative point of view on history, for the opportunity to throw shit at the memory of ancestors, the history of our state, for the Western approach to history as a science, for some reason cultivated only in Russia and the former republics of the USSR. And he waited. " "Kommersant"! In the sense of "Kommersant" with an article by Maria Makutina "An uninvited historian is worse than a punisher."
“The government, in fact, declares a monopoly on historical truth and prohibits any public discussions on controversial issues of the 1930-1940s - for example, criticism of the actions of the NKVD, believes the senior partner of the Agora project (the Ministry of Justice was included in the register of foreign agents)“ Network Freedoms ” Stanislav Seleznev. He recalls that the archival documents on the activities of the CPSU are partially classified, and he fears that, together with the new constitutional provision on the protection of historical truth, these amendments will lead to prosecution for reasoning. "
Good excerpt from posted? History, it turns out, is not facts based on historical documents, but reasoning. History is not what actually happened, but what we agreed on during a public discussion. No, it is necessary to discuss historical issues. Simply because a lot of people work in archives, study some other sources. I fully admit that one document can radically change the whole concept.
But where to discuss and with whom? At scientific disputes, where you are confronted by experts who are familiar with the documents that you use to substantiate your point of view? Yes. At scientific conferences with the most respected and knowledgeable historians? Yes. And in a school where 10-16 year olds sit who do not yet have their own opinion, and they absorb everything that the teacher says, what is written on the Internet, what is seen in the cinema? Not.
We have broken so many copies, discussing the national idea, the ideology of the state, in the education of young people. Why do you think young people “are not what we were at their age”? Why don't our boys and girls understand much of what they say about the same Great Patriotic War?
Yes, simply because at school, in college, at the university, they study different history. The very alternative story that Kommersant is advocating for. I am sure that most of the readers have heard a terrible phrase from young people more than once: “But I will not go to fight if a war starts! I will not go to fight for the oligarchs! Let them fight themselves! "
And this is not a pose. This is the point of view. These are the real moods of young people. Not all, but a large enough part. They do not understand why even the repressed were eager to go to the front. Why did our illustrious marshals and generals go through the Stalinist camps for the most part? Why did they, in general, go to fight "for Stalin"? After all, wouldn't it be more logical to do what General Vlasov and others like him did?
The words that people fought not for Stalin or Zhukov, not for Soviet power or the communist future, but for their home, for their village or city, for their family, are finally incomprehensible to them. The teacher and the history textbook taught them different values. They remember the Holodomor, the repressions, the millions who died at the hands of the Cheka and the NKVD. They remember about the "hatred of the people towards the communists."
For example, I am always amazed by disputes over a seemingly as simple point as the question of which slogans the soldiers used to attack. Remember how many times you read comments from well-educated people who completely dismissed the slogan “For the Motherland! For Stalin!". Remember the newsreel footage from Stalin's funeral. These tear-stained faces. This genuine mourning. This is not a game or an implementation of a party meeting decision. It was!
"The authors proposed to ban the identification in public speeches, the media and the Internet" goals, decisions and actions "of Soviet leaders and the military with the" goals, decisions and actions "of the Nazis," which were established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal. "
It will also be impossible to deny "the decisive role of the Soviet people in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the humanitarian mission of the USSR in the liberation of European countries."
And this is a quote from the article.
Alternative historians, just like that, just casually, ranked my deceased grandfather and grandmother, grandfathers and great-grandfathers of most readers to the Nazis. Those who rid the world of the brown plague can be called fascists. Simply because they carried out the orders of the fascists from the "Soviet leaders and the military."
Oh, how all those who licked all the places to Hitler during World War II want to forget about it. And those who really defeated fascism were mixed with mud. They were exposed as invaders, occupiers, rapists and murderers. And again I will return to the neighboring state. After all, it turns out there. And it turns out that Victory Day can be disposed of, and it turns out to heroize the punishers, and turns the victorious people into the terpila people.
"According to Mr. Budnitsky, the authors have proposed too general formulations, which may lead to their broad interpretation, up to, for example, the ban on Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate, whose characters draw parallels between the Nazi and Stalinist regimes."
What care for the cultural heritage of the past? Nobody will ban books. Simply because it is fiction, not a historical document. Reading such books is useful. But already with an established attitude to the past. Truth is always in the middle. And the man is looking for it himself.
Waiting for the amendments to enter into force
I often remember one conversation that was in my childhood. Back then, those who were breaking the back of fascism were strong 50-year-old men. And sometimes, we, boys, listened to their conversations under the front-line 100 grams about that time. The conversation was about penal companies. And suddenly a neighbor, whose chest was decorated with several combat medals, said that he was the very penalty box! And the first "ZBZ" got it in the penalty company.
We already knew about the repressions in the first days and months of the war and waited for a story about how some special officer sent such a hero to the penalty box for anti-Soviet talk or a German leaflet. But…
“Yes, they sent me to the penalty box for a criminal offense. I got to the front at the end of 42. Into the infantry. Once I saw a friend of a soldier have new boots and I wanted to change my broken shoes for these same boots. He just didn't want to change. So I had to steal a bag of pasta from the cook. In short, they quickly found me in the tribunal. They gave me a free kick for three months. Only I fought there for only two weeks.
Then we were standing in some kind of swamp. Rifles and two machine guns per company. Soldiers are like soldiers, only the shoulder straps have been taken away. It was necessary to knock the Germans off the island. They sit there like kings, and we chomp our boots in the swamp. And even a couple tanks they have there. The commander sent me to deal with the tank. Two gave grenades. Crawl and rip. Crawled, pulled. Only didn’t hit the tank. I had to slide into the funnel and sit while Fritz poured from machine guns.
And our artillery position was nearby. The forty-five was there. Not the same as in the movies, but long-nosed. Of the new ones. And around the men were lying. Successfully the German hit. In short, after an hour and a half, the German tank decided to shoot at our positions and climbed right onto the bump where the gun barrel was directed. I shot it. The tank is on fire, our people are yelling, the Germans are shooting.
And at night, when he crawled to his own, our elder had already read the paper to me. The conviction has been cleared. Heading to the next part for further passage ... ".
Then we were standing in some kind of swamp. Rifles and two machine guns per company. Soldiers are like soldiers, only the shoulder straps have been taken away. It was necessary to knock the Germans off the island. They sit there like kings, and we chomp our boots in the swamp. And even a couple tanks they have there. The commander sent me to deal with the tank. Two gave grenades. Crawl and rip. Crawled, pulled. Only didn’t hit the tank. I had to slide into the funnel and sit while Fritz poured from machine guns.
And our artillery position was nearby. The forty-five was there. Not the same as in the movies, but long-nosed. Of the new ones. And around the men were lying. Successfully the German hit. In short, after an hour and a half, the German tank decided to shoot at our positions and climbed right onto the bump where the gun barrel was directed. I shot it. The tank is on fire, our people are yelling, the Germans are shooting.
And at night, when he crawled to his own, our elder had already read the paper to me. The conviction has been cleared. Heading to the next part for further passage ... ".
I remembered the story. Maybe I already forgot something. But how should I relate to the fact that in this story there was no resentment against the commanders and special officers, or some kind of heroism? Even how it turned out to knock out this tank is told with humor. It was lucky that the gun was loaded. It was lucky that the tank itself crawled out under the sight. Lucky that's all. And then the soldier received a medal for this battle.
War is a dirty, bloody business. And everything happens in war. And people are fighting different. Good and bad, evil and kind, brave and cowardly. I remembered this conversation for a reason. You can tell how it is the former penal box Uncle Vanya, or how they show in the movie "Penal Battalion".
You can talk about how a feat is unexpected, that a soldier treats a feat as an ordinary military work. And you can talk about how the unfortunate penalties were thrown into a swamp and forced to knock the Germans out of fortified and equipped positions without the support of the entire aviation and artillery.
And you can tell about the detachment. Uncle Vanya laughed at them. The fighters were starving there. The cooks of the penalty box were afraid, but those were not. So they fed so that there were no hungry people on the front end, and the fence that was left was given. They even threw food from the Germans there. And he had no grudge against them. It happened that penalties were also cowardly. They retreated. It was here that they watered the detachment over the heads of the "Maxima". And sometimes soldiers found themselves in the same trenches together.
The adoption of amendments to the law "On the perpetuation of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" is not only a defense of the memory of the victors of fascism. This is also a groundwork for the future. This is the formulation of that very national idea. This is the formation of the psychology of winners, the psychology of patriots of the Motherland. Not the authorities, namely the Motherland, namely Russia.
Today we see how the West is shaping the ideology of destroying our country as such. Not victory over Russia, but the destruction of Russia. So we need to respond in kind. At all times, the Russians won precisely because they were united by a common idea, by one goal. We have always been a fist, not a palm.
The fist always hits harder than the palm. A punch is more sobering than a slap ...
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