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Whitewashing is the act of minimizing or covering up vices, crimes or scandals, or of exonerating the guilty by means of a perfunctory investigation or biased presentation of data with the intention to improve someone's reputation. [1]
Whitewash is a cheap white paint or coating of chalked lime that can be used to quickly give a uniform clean appearance to a wide variety of surfaces, such as the interior of a barn. [2] The first known use of the term is from 1591 in England, referring literally to the process of coloring a surface. [1] [3]
In 1800, in the United States, the word was used in a political context, when a Philadelphia Aurora editorial said that "if you do not whitewash President Adams speedily, the Democrats, like swarms of flies, will bespatter him all over, and make you both as speckled as a dirty wall, and as black as the devil." [4]
In the 20th century, many dictatorships, authoritarian and totalitarian states used whitewashing in order to glorify the results of war. For instance, during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia following the Prague Spring of 1968, the Press Group of Soviet Journalists released a collection of "facts, documents, press reports and eye-witness accounts." [5] Western journalists promptly nicknamed it "The White Book", both for its white cover and its attempts to whitewash the invasion by creating the impression that the Warsaw Pact countries had the right and duty to invade.[ citation needed ]
In the study of reputation systems by means of algorithmic game theory, whitewashing refers to the abandonment of a tarnished identity and creation of a blank one, [6] : 682 which is more widely known in internet slang as sockpuppeting.
According to the Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk director for the International Federation for Human Rights, Ilya Nuzov, Russia is trying to whitewash the country's repressive Stalinist past. [7] On August 30, 2021, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the "attacks" on the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin are part of attacks on Russia's past and the results of World War II. [8] [9] Russian politician and former deputy of the State Duma Alexei Melnikov said that Lavrov "made an attempt to whitewash Stalin, which clearly, during the period of repressive measures carried out by the authorities, showed the kinship of the authorities with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation – the same Stalin admirers." Russian literary critic and culturologist Nikolai Podosokorsky noted that "the whitewashing of domestic ghouls only indicates that the current rulers feel a spiritual kinship with them." [10]
The term "Soviet empire" collectively refers to the world's territories that the Soviet Union dominated politically, economically, and militarily. This phenomenon, particularly in the context of the Cold War, is also called Soviet imperialism by Sovietologists to describe the extent of the Soviet Union's hegemony over the Second World.
Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky, nicknamed the Red Napoleon, was a Soviet general who was prominent between 1918 and 1937 as a military officer and theoretician. He was later executed during the Moscow trials of 1936–1938.
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, during the height of the Great Purge. Yezhov organized mass arrests, torture and executions during the Great Purge, but he fell from Stalin's favour and was arrested, subsequently admitting in a confession to a range of anti-Soviet activity including "unfounded arrests" during the Purge. He was executed in 1940 along with others who were blamed for the Purge.
Western betrayal is the view that the United Kingdom, France, and sometimes the United States failed to meet their legal, diplomatic, military, and moral obligations with respect to the Czechoslovak and Polish states during the prelude to and aftermath of World War II. It also sometimes refers to the treatment of other Central and Eastern European states at the time.
Marshal of the Soviet Union was the second-highest military rank of the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin wore the uniform and insignia of Marshal after World War II.
Ivan Stepanovich Konev was a Soviet general and Marshal of the Soviet Union who led Red Army forces on the Eastern Front during World War II, responsible for taking much of Axis-occupied Eastern Europe.
Stalinist architecture, mostly known in the former Eastern Bloc as Stalinist style or socialist classicism, is the architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, between 1933 and 1955. Stalinist architecture is associated with the Socialist realism school of art and architecture.
Neo-Stalinism is the promotion of positive views of Joseph Stalin's role in history, the partial re-establishing of Stalin's policies on certain or all issues, and nostalgia for the Stalinist period. Neo-Stalinism overlaps significantly with neo-Sovietism and Soviet nostalgia. Various definitions of the term have been given over the years. Neo-Stalinism is being actively promoted by Eurasianist currents in various post-Soviet states and official rehabilitation of Stalin has occurred in Russia under Vladimir Putin. Eurasianist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, an influential neo-Stalinist ideologue in Russian elite circles, has praised Stalin as the “greatest personality in Russian history”, comparing him to Ivan the Terrible who established the Tsardom of Russia.
Postconstructivism was a transitional architectural style that existed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, typical of early Stalinist architecture before World War II. The term postconstructivism was coined by Selim Khan-Magomedov, a historian of architecture, to describe the product of avant-garde artists' migration to Stalinist neoclassicism. Khan-Magomedov identified postconstructivism with 1932–1936, but the long construction time and vast size of the country extended the period to 1941.
Fyodor Fyodorovich Raskolnikov, real name Fyodor Ilyin, was an Old Bolshevik, politician, participant in the October Revolution, writer, journalist, commander of Red fleets on the Caspian and the Baltic during the Russian Civil War, and later a Soviet diplomat.
The June deportation of 1941 was a mass deportation of tens of thousands of people during World War II from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, present-day western Belarus and western Ukraine, and present-day Moldova – territories which had been occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939–1940 – into the interior of the Soviet Union.
On 20–21 August 1968, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and the Hungarian People's Republic. The invasion stopped Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberalisation reforms and strengthened the authoritarian wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ).
The Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests was a commission in the Russian Federation that was set up by a decree issued by president Dmitry Medvedev on 15 May 2009, officially to "defend Russia against falsifiers of history and those who would deny Soviet contribution to the victory in World War II". The commission was headed by Medvedev's Chief of staff Sergey Naryshkin. The decree establishing the commission was invalidated on 14 February 2012, and the commission thus ceased to exist. The commission has been described as a further regress toward Soviet and Stalinist practices, glorifying the Soviet Union and its crimes.
The Black Ribbon Day, officially known in the European Union as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism and also referred to as the Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, is an international day of remembrance for victims of totalitarianism regimes, specifically Stalinist, communist, Nazi and fascist regimes. Formally recognised by the European Union, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and some other countries, it is observed on 23 August. It symbolises the rejection of "extremism, intolerance and oppression" according to the European Union. The purpose of the Day of Remembrance is to preserve the memory of the victims of mass deportations and exterminations, while promoting democratic values to reinforce peace and stability in Europe. It is one of the two official remembrance days or observances of the European Union, alongside Europe Day. Under the name Black Ribbon Day it is an official remembrance day of Canada. The European Union has used both names alongside each other.
Matvei Davidovich Berman was a Soviet security officer and head of the Gulag Soviet prison camp system from 1932 to 1937.
The Edge is a 2010 Russian historical drama film directed by Alexei Uchitel. The film was nominated for the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was also selected as the Russian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards but it didn't make the final shortlist.
The anti-Stalinist left is a term that refers to various kinds of Marxist political movements that oppose Joseph Stalin, Stalinism, Neo-Stalinism and the system of governance that Stalin implemented as leader of the Soviet Union between 1924 and 1953. This term also refers to the high ranking political figures and governmental programs that opposed Joseph Stalin and his form of communism, such as Leon Trotsky and other traditional Marxists within the Left Opposition. In Western historiography, Stalin is considered one of the worst and most notorious figures in modern history.
Rafael Abramovich Grugman is a Russian and Ukrainian writer, journalist, engineer, programmer and college educator.
Engelsina "Gelya" Sergeyevna Markizova was a Buryat historian who achieved fame as a child after being depicted in a photo embracing the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, an image which became one of the most enduring propaganda symbols of the Stalinist era, when it was widespread in schools, pioneer's camps and children's institutions.
The European Parliament resolution of 19 September 2019 on the importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe was a resolution of the European Parliament adopted on 19 September 2019 with 535 votes in favor, 66 against, and 52 abstentions, which called for remembrance of totalitarian crimes and condemned propaganda that denies or glorifies totalitarian crimes, and linked such propaganda to Russian information warfare against "democratic Europe."
Media related to Whitewashing (censorship) at Wikimedia Commons
