The kremlin Is Rehabilitating stalin’s Repressions

russian archives have stopped releasing files on people repressed during stalin’s purges to historians and representatives  of the public. Under the rf’s  law, any interested person can obtain the file of a repressed person 75 years after its closure. However, russian bureaucrats refer to “rosarkhiv” Order No. 38 of March 20, 2025, on the procedure for classifying documents as the “limited-access official  information”.

The order provides for the creation of a list marked “for official use only”,  to which documents may be added if their dissemination “could pose a potential threat to the interests of the rf”.  As a result, historians, writers, and researchers are deprived of the opportunity to work with archival documents – they can only be provided to relatives of the repressed if they can prove their family ties. Thus, with a single order from the “rosarkhiv”, moscow has officially recognized that it considers the memory of millions of people tortured and killed during stalin’s repressions to be a threat to national security, while  the very events of those years are seen as   a historical necessity.

The story with the cases of the repressed is part of the overall cognitive strategy of the current russian government. The whitewashing of the “leader” and the creation of myths around his personality are actively taking place at various levels. In July of this year, the communist party of the rf  called first secretary of the central committee of the communist party of the soviet union, Nikita Khrushchev’s report  “On the Cult of Personality (of stalin) and Its Consequences” at the 20th  congress of the communist party of the soviet union “erroneous and politically biased”. Monuments to the “leader of all times and all peoples” are being opened again  in the rf, and his name increasingly sounds as an example for today’s kremlin leaders.

According to russian historians’ estimates, between 1921 and 1953 (the years of stalin’s rule), 23.77 million people were convicted in the ussr, of whom 6.43 million received capital punishment and 3.765 million were sent into exile. According to Western researchers, a total of 45 to 80 million citizens of the former ussr suffered from stalin’s repressions.