Russians mark Stalin anniversary

Russian Communists on Thursday marked the 56th anniversary of Joseph Stalins death amid a new controversy over the shelving of the Russian translation of a major new book about the Soviet dictator. British historian Orlando Figes claimed this week that his Russian publishers have scrapped the translation of his book "The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalins Russia" on the orders of the Kremlin.
Rights activists in Russia have in recent years sounded alarm over mounting official acclaim for the wartime Soviet leader, who is blamed by historians for the deaths of millions of people in forced collectivisation and terror.
Figes dramatic claim also comes after a respected Russian cabinet member, Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu, proposed making it a crime to deny the Soviet victory against Nazi Germany in World War II. Atticus, Figes Russian publisher, has disputed his assertion, saying that amid the current economic crisis in Russia it is simply impossible to publish a book of such length and complexity.
The public relations manager for Atticus, Natalya Lemegova, described "The Whisperers" as "a very serious book which demands work in the archives and for which large financial means are necessary."
"For the moment, amid the current financial crisis, we cannot do this as Figes book is also intended for the future," she told the RIA Novosti news agency. But Figes, Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London, and author of several best-selling books on Russia, said that while economic considerations played a part, the main reason was political.
"I suspect (as do my friends in Russia) that the real reason is political. The history in my book is inconvenient to the current regime in Russia," he said in a statement on his website. "The Kremlin has been actively campaigning for the rehabilitation of Stalin. It wants Russians to take pride in Soviet history and not to be burdened with a paralysing sense of guilt about the repressions of the Stalin period."
His book chronicles the repression in Stalins Russia through the eyewitness testimony of dozens of ordinary Soviet citizens, often using original interview material gathered by the Russian rights group Memorial.
Memorial, which has waged a lonely struggle for recognition of victims of rights abuses in Soviet and modern Russia, was the target of a raid in December by the authorities who confiscated documents on the Soviet terror. But Arseny Roginsky, chairman of the Memorial board, also cast doubt on Figes assertions that the cancellation of his book was politically motivated.
The Georgian-born Stalin, who died on March 5, 1953, came a close third in a state television poll late last year to find the "greatest Russian" in history. The Russian Communist party hierarchy on Thursday laid wreaths at his grave in the Kremlin walls to remember his death. "Of course I am not in agreement with the political-historical tendencies of the authorities and the cultivation of Stalin," said Roginsky.