RUSSIA PROTESTS "PROCLAMATION ON CAPTIVE NATIONS"

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 002171

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/28/2018
TAGS: PREL PHUM PGOV RS
SUBJECT: RUSSIA PROTESTS "PROCLAMATION ON CAPTIVE NATIONS"

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Eric Rubin: Reasons 1.4 (b, d).


1. (C) In a July 25 meeting with the Charge, MFA North
America Director Igor Neverov raised Russian concerns over
the 2008 presidential "Proclamation on Captive Nations Week."
Noting that the GOR had not made an issue of the
proclamation before, Neverov said that the annual statement
had caught the attention of "public figures" this year;
specifically, the juxtaposition of "the evils of Soviet
communism and Nazi facism." The sentence appeared to equate
the two, which Neverov stressed was an anathema for the
Russian public and leadership, given the fact that the Soviet
Union had been an ally in WW2 against the Nazis, and
communist Soviet troops had helped defeat Hitler. The GOR,
Neverov clarified, was not attempting to defend Soviet
communism -- it was "dead and good riddance" -- and
understood the logic of the annual proclamation, but urged
that "Cold War rhetoric" be avoided in the future. Charge
responded that this was the eighth such proclamation by the
President and that no hidden message should be read into the
statement. Charge undertook to convey Russian concerns to
Washington.


2. (U) On July 26, the MFA posted a commentary (MFA
translation provided in paragraph 5),sarcastically
criticizing the proclamation language as a "novelty" that put
an equal sign between Nazi facism and Soviet communism.
These were parallels that "don't hold water." The U.S.
formulation, the MFA charged, hurt the feelings of Russian
veterans, as well as veterans of other countries in the
anti-Hitler alliance. The MFA concluded by noting the
"surprising tolerance" evidenced by the U.S. toward those in
Europe attempting to "whitewash their own Nazi accomplices."


3. (SBU) While Russian television has not focused on the
issue, the MFA's commentary received wide play in the press.
Several national print dailies carried stories extensively
quoting the statement. Liberal Kommersant noted that
although the MFA maintained that "democratic Russia" had an
objective assessment of the Soviet period, the Russian
Orthodox Church had recently taken the Russian government to
task for not having condemned Bolshevik crimes. However,
pro-Kremlin newspapers latched on to the accusations of U.S.
Cold War bias, with Izvestiya concluding that "Bush may hate
the USSR and its philosophy, but he really overdid it by
equating communism to facism." While the right-of-center
Nezavisimaya Gazeta acknowledged that talk of Russian bombers
to Cuba and the visit of Chavez to Moscow had helped fuel a
Cold War atmosphere, the newspaper appeared to side with the
MFA in reinforcing the decisive contribution made by the
Soviet Union in defeating Nazism.


4. (C) Comment: The purity of the Soviet contribution in
defeating Nazism is a deeply held belief in Russia, with
Russian anger over debates in the former Soviet republics
over the role of partisans (who sided with Hitler in
opposition to Stalin) and the victims of the famine of the
1930's collectivization drive (whether a Ukrainian genocide,
or the widespread devastation of a multiethnic peasant class)
likely contributing to the commentary's sarcastic tone.


5. (U) Begin GOR Translation: "MFA Information and Press
Department Commentary in Connection with the Signing by the
U.S. President of the Proclamation on Captive Nations Week,

2008.

Last week U.S. President George Bush signed a regular
proclamation on the theme of "captive nations," with which he
annually comes up on the basis of a law adopted way back in
the Cold War era. Well, it's business as usual, but this
time around one "novelty" has appeared: quite unambiguously
the equal sign is put between Nazi fascism and Soviet
communism, which are now coupled as a "single evil" of the
20th century.

Whatever the U.S. president's attitude towards the period of
the Soviet Union and communist ideology, which, by the way,
have been given an objective assessment in contemporary
democratic Russia, free of ideological stereotypes of the
past, these American "parallels" don't hold water, either
from the viewpoint of history or in terms of universal human
concepts. While condemning the abuse of power and
unjustified severity of the Soviet regime's internal
policies, we nevertheless can neither treat indifferently
attempts to equate Communism and Nazism nor agree that they
were inspired by the same ideas and aims.

Historical facts incontestably attest that the USSR
contributed decisively to the victory over German facism. It
was thanks to the Soviet Union and the feat of arms and labor
of the Soviet people that Europe was saved from the Nazi
occupation and enslavement. The memory of this will always
live in the hearts of grateful descendants.
The phrase under which the U.S. president signed cannot but
hurt the hearts of not only the Russian participants of that
war, but also we think of the veterans of the other countries
of the anti-Hitler coalition, including American, who should
to should fought for the common victory and shed their blood
on the battlefields in the name of freedom and the future.

By the way, one cannot but see that such assessments simply
feed the efforts of those, who for political and selfish ends
are striving to falsify the facts and rewrite history. All
this takes place against the backdrop of the surprising
tolerance being show in the United States toward those who in
a number of European countries are trying to whitewash "their
own" Nazi accomplices.

It is sad that in the new realities of the 21st century the
old Cold War for people's minds is continuing, with the use
of dubious methods at that. This is the wrong tack." End
MFA Translation
RUBIN