Paradox of the history: monuments to Hitler's accomplices are erected in Russia

Sergey Baimukhametov

On the eve of Victory Day, a bill was introduced to the State Duma to ban public identification of the role of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in World War II, and to "deny the decisive role of the Soviet people in the defeat of Nazi Germany".

Regarding the last point, we can only say that only a madman can deny the decisive role of the USSR in the defeat of fascism. And what now, to adopt a separate law for him? Everything else also raises questions from political scientists, historians, and the public. For example, what do legislators understand by the word “identification”? What are its features, legal qualifications, parameters, boundaries? Therefore, most commentators agree that the ban on historical research and information exchange on the Internet will increase. I remember that about five years ago they tried the Archangel Mikhail Listov, who republished photos from the 1945 Victory Day parade from a history textbook. On it, Soviet soldiers plunged Nazi banners onto the paving stones of Red Square. The swastika is clearly visible on them. Here Listov was sentenced for "public demonstration of Nazi symbols".

In light of the new, numerous amendments to the laws, there is now a risk of getting a sentence, for example, for citing Soviet newspapers of 1939? Those that published telegrams exchanged between Hitler, Stalin and Ribbentrop, including the words: "The friendship of the peoples of Germany and the Soviet Union, sealed with blood, has every reason to be long and lasting" (Pravda, Izvestia, 25 December 1939). Or those in which the speech of the head of the Soviet government, Molotov, at the session of the USSR Supreme Soviet was printed: "It turned out that a short blow on Poland from the first German army, then the Red Army, was enough so that nothing was left of this ugly brainchild of the Versailles Treaty".

But at the same time, in the light of the cruel attention of legislators and law enforcement officers to historical research, to the exchange of information on the Internet, it seems strange and even mysterious to be completely deaf to public appeals regarding the public glorification and glorification of those who glorified and glorified Hitler and Hitlerism, called Russian people to fight on the side of Hitler. For example, since 2006 in one of the villages there has been a monument to the former Donskoy ataman Pyotr Krasnov, who was executed by the verdict of the Soviet military tribunal as an accomplice of Hitler.

Perhaps, the respect of the state for private property is reflected here. After all, a private museum and a seven-meter monument are located on the territory of a private estate, however, open to all visitors. Private property is sacred and inviolable. Does the previously adopted law on criminal liability "for public denial of facts and approval of crimes established by the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal" apply to her?

However, it seems that it is absolutely impossible to disseminate such information on state television. But…

On April 26, 2020, Dmitry Kiselev, general director of the state news agency Rossiya Segodnya, on the air of the Vesti Nedeli program, announced a list of historical figures to whom, in his opinion, monuments should be erected, including Peter Krasnov.

On the day of the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR, June 22, 1941, Krasnov addressed the Cossacks with an appeal, which he ended as follows: "May the Lord help German weapons and Hitler!" In one of the next manifestos he wrote: “Cossacks! Remember, you are not Russians, you are Cossacks, an independent people. Russians are hostile to you. Moscow has always been the enemy of the Cossacks, oppressed and exploited them. Now the time has come when we, the Cossacks, can create our own life independent of Moscow".

In the first issue of the magazine “At the Cossack Post” Krasnov called on the Cossacks: “Go to the German troops, go with them and remember that in the new Europe of Adolf Hitler there will be a place only for those who, in the terrible and decisive hour of the last battle, were unhypocritically with him and the German people!"

Krasnov headed the Main Directorate of the Cossack Troops of the Imperial Ministry of the Eastern Occupied Territories of Germany. Then, on March 30, 1944, he was transferred to the subordination of the Main Directorate of the SS.

The military rank of Krasnov is the SS Brigadefuehrer.

In 2005, the remains of the writer and philosopher Ivan Ilyin, brought from France, were reburied at the cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery with all state honors. At that time, he was often quoted by high government officials, politicians, some cultural figures, considering him the ideologist of Russian patriotic thought. A multivolume collection of his works has been published in Russia.

In 1933, Ivan Ilyin welcomed Hitler's rise to power: “Europe does not understand the National Socialist movement ... We advise you not to believe the propaganda trumpeting about the local“ atrocities ”... What is happening is a great social transformation; but not property, but state-political and cultural-driving ... What did Hitler do? He stopped the process of Bolshevization in Germany and thereby rendered the greatest service to the whole of Europe. "

15 years have passed since 1933. 15 years after a terrible war, the tragedy of mankind. In 1947, the Nuremberg Trials took place. With motion pictures from concentration camps that shook the world.

Nevertheless, in 1948 Ivan Ilyin wrote in his article "On Fascism":

"Fascism was ... right, because it was looking for just socio-political reforms ... Fascism was right, because it proceeded from a healthy national-patriotic feeling, without which no nation can either assert its existence or create its own culture".

Earlier, in 2000, at the same cemetery of the Donskoy Monastery, the ashes of the writer Ivan Shmelev, transported from Switzerland, were reburied. The same one that O.A. Bredius-Subbotina: “I am so illuminated by the event of June 22, the great feat of the Knight, who raised his sword against the Devil. I firmly believe that strong bonds of brotherhood will henceforth bind both great peoples. Great suffering purifies and exalts. Lord, how my heart beats, with unspeakable joy".

The Russian writer Shmelev called Hitler a knight.

On October 9, 1941, when the Nazis broke through our front near Vyazma and launched an offensive on Moscow (when 4 armies were surrounded, only according to official data, Soviet troops lost more than 380 thousand killed and wounded, more than 600 thousand prisoners), Shmelev informed Bredius-Subbotin : “Yesterday was the day of St. Sergius of Radonezh, Russia's patron saint. I was waiting. I was waiting for an echo - I was waiting for the gospel... I was not deceived by my heart, I heard the fanfare, the drum - at 2:30, - a special communique: the Devil's front was broken near Vyazma, in front of Moscow, the armies were surrounded. "

In the center of Moscow, in a small park not far from the Tretyakov Gallery, stands a monument-bust of Shmelev.

In 2014, the square was named after Shmelev.

How is this all to be understood?