Marina Lagutina on Vesti.FM: falsification of the WW II history cannot be hushed up  

In Russia, the threat of a revision of the World War II history has been discussed for many years. Unfortunately, the further we are from 1945, the more this threat becomes real, due to the information technologies, social networks, development of the Internet, as it becomes easier to manipulate people’s memory and knowledge, the analyst of Vestnik Kavkaza, Marina Lagutina said today in the National Question program on Vesti FM.

"What is the purpose of falsifying history, connected with the demonization of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in particular? The first goal is to equate fascist Germany with the communist Soviet Union in the minds of people, that is, to shift responsibility for the outbreak of the WW II to Russia. The second goal is to load off all responsibility for what happened during the war (including collaboration, war crimes, betrayal, inaction, etc.) And as Russia strengthens in the international arena, such propaganda to set up the public against our country is only intensifying, " the analyst said, stressing that these factors are one of the tools in the geopolitical struggle.

According to Marina Lagutina, to disseminate the idea that "if there was no pact, there would be no war," the historical facts are not needed. "You can just write emotional articles, stressing on the immoral behavior of Stalin, create groups in social networks that publish frankly falsified information and fictitious stories, write history books with your own interpretation of the historical facts and a radical shift in focus or even not to mention historically significant events. This also includes the adoption at the state level of the laws on demolition of monuments to the Soviet soldiers (as in Poland), resolutions and declarations with the accusation of the USSR in unleashing the WW II (as in Poland and Ukraine), the imposition of a criminal penalty for denying occupation (as in Latvia) or even attempts to return cultural values exported from Germany to Russia during the war, which means either the Federal Republic of Germany ceased to recognize unconditional surrender in the war or ceased to recognize Russia as a winner, and this is a revision of the outcome of the war, and generally sounds absurd, "Marina Lagutina said.

The expert drew attention to the fact that the ideas falsifying the WW II history, which a couple of decades ago seemed absurd and frankly delusional, today not only have become widespread in a number of countries but have also become the subject of scientific discussions. ”And this is horrifying. Even the craziest phrase, repeated a million times, begins to seem normal, and with the development of the Internet it's becoming easier to repeat such crazy phrases. We need to be ready for this. We need to prepare counter-arguments, backed up by the historical facts, be ready to ask inconvenient questions and show the absurdity, illogicality and incompetence of such propaganda. It is necessary to do so both at the most general, state level, and at the local level, in private conversations. The most important thing - we should not turn a blind eye to this problem and think that people will never believe this,’’ Marina Lagutina concluded.