Former Prime Minister of Russia Sergei Stepashin
Photo: Viktor GUSEYNOV
… – Sergey Vadimovich, I congratulate you on the Day of the Chekist.
– Thank you. Now this holiday is called the Day of State Security Organs. (It is celebrated annually on December 20. – AG) Therefore, I congratulate Komsomolskaya Pravda, because it also watches over the security of our country.
– Of course. And yet you were the head of the Lubyanka. But I, in fact, did not just call for this. Very relevant order from Vladimir Putin. He spoke many times about the need to change, in general, the attitude towards our history, we must take into account in the textbooks the proposal, or something like that, regarding the interpretation of Nazism…
– Sash, this is not a proposal, it is an order from the president.
– They are different things, yes.
– So that the section related to the genocide of the Nazi army against the Soviet people was clearly explained in the textbooks. This is the first.
Secondly, an additional instruction was given to the Investigative Committee and the General Prosecutor’s Office: once again pay attention to new facts, especially in the blockade of Leningrad.
– If we talk about the blockade of Leningrad, the prosecutor’s office recognized it as genocide.
– And I, in turn, on November 30, as the chairman of the Russian Bar Association, sent a letter to the chairman of the State Duma, Comrade Volodin, so that the lower house would consider the issue … Already purely politically , – at your meeting. And he recognized as genocide – in relation to the civilian population – all the actions of the Nazi troops and their henchmen. Including some European countries. There are Slovaks, Croats and Bulgarians, there are Czechs, who in fact were not there.
During the war, 28 million people died in our country, of which about 19 million were civilians who were simply destroyed by hunger, cold, murder, burning, etc.
I am waiting for the decision of the State Duma. The president, at least, was ahead of him.
– I remember we published an interview on this topic…
– Well, somehow the State Duma has been silent for now. I don’t understand why, to be honest.
As a former deputy of the State Duma and a deputy of the Supreme Council, I once again, through Komsomolskaya Pravda, appeal to the leaders of the State Duma, with a request to return to this issue.
I wrote not only on my behalf, but as the president of the Russian Bar Association, which has 35,000 professionals in this field, just in case.
– And one more thing… If the issue of publishing such textbooks arises, can the Russian Book Union (RKS), which you lead, join this issue?
– Mandatory.
We have an order, we carry out an examination of textbooks – time.
The second is the Prosveshcheniye publishing house, which mainly publishes textbooks and is part of the RCC.
So, we will definitely get involved in this work, we are already participating in it.
And there is such an agreement with Vladimir Medinsky, who, as an assistant to the president, currently leads this direction, as far as I know.
And, of course, with Sergei Naryshkin, director of the Russian Historical Society.
We are not just discussing, we are working in this direction now.
– And what did the exam you are doing show, exactly in relation to the topic we are dealing with today?
– He began to put things in order, thank God.
The story should be one: true, and not from the political situation, as it was in the 1990s.
We need to be more careful with history and actually be professional in these matters. As, however, in others related to the life of our country,
– Well, since we are already addressing this topic for the second time in a month, I think that I even hope that we will continue it more.
– The President has already dotted the i’s, so I’m a little surprised why our legislators are silent.
– Understood. Thanks a lot. Once again, Happy Labor Day…
– … state security agencies.
