Abstract

Something is happening in the Soviet Union. One wonders whether it is a remodeling of the outdated Soviet system, or a real “reconstruction,” the term used by its ambitious and somewhat pretentious champion. One can accept with less reservation the other parameter of his “new thinking,” i.e., “openness,” its main thrust being the reexamination and definition of the Stalin myth. From this perspective, glasnost is an attempt to retrieve the meaning of history which, during the Stalin era and also the Brezhnev period was perverted into a narrative of gross falsifications and forgeries of all sorts. An example may suffice.