Falsifying History

The flood of almost unbelievably Stalinesque propaganda about World War II and its aftermath continues to pour from the Kremlin in the long run-up to May 9 and the 60th anniversary event in Moscow that is to be attended by world leaders. The latest outburst is directed against Finland. In a RIAN item headed "Hitler's Ally Finland Should Not Correct Textbooks", the Russian Foreign Ministry gives its "response" to a speech by Finnish President Tarja Halonen at the French Institute of International Relations. The article makes the Russian view plain:

She gave the audience a sidelight on the Finnish vision of WWII, the main point of which is that for Finland WWII meant a separate war against the Soviet Union, in the course of which the Finns upheld their independence and the democratic political system.

The commentary of the Press and Information Board of the Russian Foreign Ministry, which has come to hand at RIA Novosti on Thursday, notes that this vision of history has become wide-spread in Finland especially in the last ten years.

"The desire to respect its past is natural of any country. The period of mutual mistrust between the Soviet Union and Finland, which led to two wars brought uncountable sufferings to the peoples of both the countries," the ministerial commentary reads.

Moscow believes that "today, 60 years later, remembrances of this common pain should not divide but bring us closer together, aim at the development of constructive goodneighbourly relations".

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry believes that "there are hardly grounds to make corrections in history textbooks world-wide erasing mention that during the years of the 2nd World War Finland was among the allies of Hitler's Germany, waged war on its side and, correspondingly, bears its own share of responsibility for that war".

"In order to become convinced what the historical truth is, it is enough to open the preamble of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, concluded between Finland and the 'Allied and United Powers'. Incidentally, the 1947 Peace Treaty contained serious political clauses guaranteeing the rehabilitation in post-war Finland of the human rights and freedoms, which make up the basis of democratic society", the ministerial commentary notes.

This view of the "historical truth" excludes completely, of course, an awareness or admission that in 1939 Soviet Russia concluded a military agreement with Nazi Germany, and that the invasion, occupation, and partition of Poland and much of the rest of Eastern Europe in that year was conducted according to a secret joint Nazi-Soviet protocol. It misses out the fact that in the Winter War of 1939-40, launched by Stalin against Finland, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were on the same side. It also omits any mention of the massive and crippling reparations that Finland was forced to pay to the Soviet Union after the end of the war.

It's clear that the Kremlin authorities are now reverting to a view of World War II deriving from the hardline, Stalinist approach to its history that characterized the early years of the Cold War.