Putin's dictatorship: a politician is detained in Russia for comparing Hitler and Stalin

@ElentirENG ES 8·30·2022 · 18:43 0

While some anti-communists defend Putin in the West, the Russian dictator persecutes those who criticize the communist dictator and genocide Stalin.

Putin comes to the rescue of communism: he wants to ban equating the USSR with nazism
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A law passed in 2021 to prohibit equating Nazi Germany and the USSR

As we saw here, last year the Kremlin promoted a legal reform to criminalize those who compare the USSR with Nazism. On January 23, 2021, the Kremlin published a note about the that legal reform stating that its objective was "to establish a ban on public identification of the role of the USSR and Nazi Germany in World War II (1939-1945)", within the framework of the so-called Federal Law "On Perpetuating the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945". As a consequence of the aforementioned reform, on July 1, 2021 the following Article 61 was introduced in the aforementioned law:

"It is prohibited in public speech, publicly displayed work, in the media or when publishing information using information and telecommunications networks, including the Internet, to identify the goals, decisions and actions of the leadership of the USSR, the command and military personnel of the USSR with the goals, decisions and actions of the leadership of Nazi Germany, the command and military personnel of Nazi Germany and the European Axis, established by the verdict of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial and Punishment of Major War Criminals of the European Axis (Nuremberg Tribunal) or by verdicts of national, military or occupation courts, based on the verdict of the Military Tribunal International for the Trial and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis Countries (Nuremberg Tribunal) or issued during the Great Patriotic War, World War II, as well as the denial of the decisive role of the Soviet people in the defeat of Nazi Germany and the humanitarian mission of the USSR in the liberation of the countries of Europe."

The alliance between Nazi Germany and the USSR between 1939 and 1941

Let us remember that after the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact on August 23, 1939, Nazi Germany and the USSR began World War II with a joint invasion of Poland, which included a parade of both forces occupiers to celebrate the defeat of the Poles at Brześć Litewski (today Brest-Litovsk, Belarus). Germany and the USSR maintained that alliance until June 1941, when Hitler betrayed Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. Until then, that alliance was embodied in a trade agreement through which Germany received from the USSR 1.6 million tons of grain, 900,000 tons of oil, 500,000 tons of iron ore and other large quantities of raw materials that allowed it to make weapons and uniforms, feed its troops, and provide fuel for its tanks and planes.

In addition to that, the German Gestapo and the Soviet NKVD held joint meetings to share information and experience in order to liquidate the Polish resistance. Likewise, the USSR handed over to the German Gestapo some 4,000 German communists and Jews who had taken refuge in Soviet territory.

The Kremlin maintains the propaganda slogans of the Soviet dictatorship

Affirming these historical facts is illegal in Putin's Russia, by virtue of the aforementioned law, which means the continuation to this day of the Soviet propaganda that denied those facts and the persecution they suffered. in the USSR those people who denounced them. In application of this aberrant legislation, in Russia it is also illegal to denounce, for example, the mass murders and rapes committed by the Red Army in Poland at the end of the World War II, some atrocities that the Putin regime continues to describe as "liberation", just as the USSR did until its disappearance in 1991.

Opposition politician Leonid Gozman was arrested yesterday in Moscow

Within the framework of this persecution against those who denounce the crimes of Soviet communism, Russian politician Leonid Gozman was arrested yesterday in Moscow. Gozman, 72, is a secular Jew, has dual Russian and Israeli citizenship, and is the leader of the Union of Right Forces, a conservative-liberal opposition movement that has been criticizing Putin's imperialist policy and his aggression against Ukraine. According to his friend Denis Pekarev, Gozman left Russia for Israel after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 this year, but returned to Russia in June. Since then, the Kremlin has been looking for excuses to stop him at any cost.

Arrested and sentenced for a message published before the approval of that law

The reason for Gozman's arrest is the publication on October 28, 2020 of a comment on Facebook, in which he said that Putin "has been trying to legally ban comparisons between the USSR and Nazi Germany, Stalin and Hitler, the SMERSH [USSR counterintelligence department] and NKVD [Stalin's political police] with SS and Gestapo. It's understandable, in the present all problems are solved, it's time to take care of the past. But in this case, I want to support. You can't equate them. Hitler is absolutely evil, but Stalin is even worse. The SS are criminals, but the NKVD is even worse, because the Chekists killed their own. Hitler unleashed a war against humanity. The communists declared total war on their own people."

Note that the publication date of that comment (October 2020) is prior to the law for which Gozman has been arrested (it was approved July 2021). This supposes a violation of human rights, specifically of Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed."

According to Radio Liberty, Gozman has been sentenced to 15 days in prison.

Putin, a nostalgic for communism who does not admit criticism of Stalin

One wonders what the citizens of Western countries who say they are against communism, but at the same time support the Putin regime, a dictator whose regime is dedicated to criminalizing those who criticize that totalitarian ideology and the Soviet dictatorship. Recall that in June 2017, Putin said that the demonization of the figure of Stalin is "a way of attacking the Soviet Union and Russia". But some still insist on presenting Putin as a defender of Christian civilization.

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Photo: Viktor Chistikin. Leonid Gozman, leader of the Union of Right Forces, a Russian opposition movement.