Finally, they are talking. I mean if the Chairman of the Duma's Foreign Relations Committee Konstantin Kosachev is saying things like that, it means something. Whether he consulted with the Kremlin before making such a bold and courageous statement or not is an open question, but when a man of his statue says that "our society is to no lesser extent the victim of the erstwhile regime, was no less articulate in condemning the crimes of Stalin's totalitarianism, and acted on its own, without external intervention and democratically, to remove the communist ideology from power," it tells you a lot.
Let us be fair. It is not easy for the country's leaders while the Communist Party (CPRF) still gets around 15 percent of the votes to say publicly that the Soviet system were a criminal one. And most likely the main reason why Lenin's tomb is still sitting on the Red Square is that no one wants CPRF to increase its ratings by getting their people on the streets to defend their beloved corpse.
In September 2005 I wrote a letter to President Vladimir Putin repeating the same question I printed earlier in the Russian daily Izvestia. I asked him why he doesn't admit that Russia was enslaved by communism together with 14 other Soviet republics and the countries of Eastern Europe. Moreover, in the absolute numbers of victims it was Russia that suffered the most and it was Russia that liberated itself, all the captive nations, and for that matter, the world, from Soviet-style communism.
I did not get a direct answer from Putin but my Russian visa was not revoked, and I started to receive invitations to appear on many television and radio talk-shows repeating more or less the same lines. Only a couple of weeks ago I said on one of the main Russian television channels that it is time to admit that although the Red Army made the most crucial contribution to defeat the Nazis, it was the same Red Army that occupied the Baltics, Western Ukraine and Eastern Europe for almost 50 years. Since this show was pre-taped these lines could have been easily deleted, but they were not.
My weak voice, of course, is obviously not the only one. The work to deal with the Soviet legacy is being done slowly, but surely. This regime and its policies have been repeatedly condemned by Russia's current top officials and the media, including government-run television channels: these are constantly filled with devastating documentaries and feature films describing the horrors of the Soviet era. Most recently both Medvedev and Putin denounced Stalin's terror in connection with the Katyn massacre, and we have heard them denouncing communist policies and dogmas many times since and before.
The job of writing a comprehensive multi-volume modern Russian history was offered by the Kremlin to no one else but Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the person who, through his writings and public activities, has done more than any other man to destroy the communist ideology. Due to his old age he passed this honor to the Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO) - one of the most prestigious schools for future Russian diplomats -- Professor Andrei Zubov, known for his calls for Russia's de-communization similar to the de-Nazification of postwar Germany. History books rarely become bestsellers, but this one surely did. It has won praise from many well-known scholars, including Richard Pipes and others who can hardly be charged with being Moscow's appeasers or sympathizers.
It would be highly advisable for U.S. Congress to complement Kosachev's words with the editing or at least with starting the discussion on the text of the "Captive Nations Resolution" on July 17, 1959. The time to act is now, as Barack Obama is getting ready to make this proclamation this week.
That law, contrary to historic facts, uses such expressions like "Russian communism" and "communist Russia." These should be replaced by "Soviet communism" and "Soviet Union." In addition, Russia should be added to the list of 30 or so captive nations listed in this resolution.
Believe me, this is not just a linguistic exercise, but a long overdue symbolic gesture, which will have a huge positive impact on the "reset" in U.S.-Russian relations.
Edward Lozansky is president of American University in Moscow.
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