Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has made an outspoken attack on those seeking to rehabilitate former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
Millions of Soviet citizens died under Stalin's rule and Mr Medvedev said it was not possible to justify those who exterminated their own people.
He also warned against efforts to falsify history and defend repression.
Some Russian politicians have recently tried to portray Stalin in a more positive light.
Under President Medvedev's predecessor, current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Stalin was often promoted as an efficient leader who turned the Soviet Union into a superpower.
Brutal regime
Mr Medvedev made the unusually critical comments in a videoblog posted on the Kremlin's website.
It appeared on the day the country is supposed to honour millions of people killed under Stalin's brutal regime which lasted from the late 1920s until his death in 1953.
Mr Medvedev said it was impossible to imagine the scale of repression under Stalin when whole groups of people were eliminated and even stripped of their right to be buried.
The president said there were now attempts to justify the repression of the past, and he warned against the falsification of history.
All this flies in the face of the current trend to promote Stalin as an effective manager and a leader who transformed the Soviet Union.
Under Mr Putin, the order was given for school history books to be re-written, highlighting Stalin's achievements.
In Moscow there is now even a Stalin-themed cafe and a metro station with one of Stalin's famous slogans on its walls. In northern Russia a historian investigating crimes committed by the former Soviet dictator was recently arrested.
It would appear there is a split within the Russian leadership on this highly sensitive issue.
I know a lot of people dismiss Medvedev as Putin’s lackey, but I believe he is much more ambitious than that. He also seems more of a balanced and sensible individual.
+http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8334009.stm
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Stalin was a brutal despot who should certainly not be venerated. About the only good thing that might be said about Stalin is that he rallied the Soviet populace against the German attack.
As to Stalin's slogans, i do have one that is great: "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
I told you guys Medvedev was his own man and a lot less hard line than Putin and that he wasnt some hand picked successor. its good to see him taking a stand on this as there are quite a few in both Russia and Ukraine that have a twisted affection for Stalin and thats just sick. How can you admire a person that killed more of his countrymen than even Hitler?
Russia cannot move forward until they come to terms with their past – achievements as well as dark periods! Not because the West tells them to, but for their own sake.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It all goes back to Nikita Khrushchev. He was the first Soviet leader to reverse some of the exesses of Stalin. In 1956, at the Twentieth Party Congress, he delivered the "Secret Speech", vilifying Stalin and ushering in a less repressive era in the Soviet Union.
Khrushchev told the delegates,
"... Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality, and his abuse of power ... he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party or the Soviet Government.
