Haha, dont send a Russian to do a man's job. :) Damn, can't they learn anything from their democratic neighbors? I thought this crude "Soviet" type of propaganda have been long overridden by much subtler mechanism of mind control. Look across the Atlantic or the English Channel.

Pretentious Indifference , Ashkabad, Tennessee

I dont see why the author keep repeating that the organisation is closely linked to kremlin? where else should it be linked to? UK or US embassy!

P Dias, Nairobi, Kenya

Plus ca change...Stalin altered history books in the 1930s to make him appear closer to Lenin, and to discredit the Old Bolsheviks. Khrushchev redressed the balance, but as part of his de-stalinisation policies in the 1950s. Now Putin is attempting a similar massage of the historical facts. We should always fight for the truth...we in the West know how brutal Soviet Russia was, and if people there think that Stalin was the best leader communism produced, then they must be very forgiving. This is insidious political interference of the old school. Western democracy may not be perfect, and some of our past contains episodes that we might like to forget, but at least we admit them, and debate them, and they are in our history books. We did not have to murder tens of millions of our own citizens to get compliance from our population for a now- discredited system, nor do we attempt to adjust history, in the forlorn hope that glossing over the past will eliminate it.

Simon Bull, London, UK

Doesn't anyone here read Russian and can comment on Sergey Hudiev, Moscow, Russia, comment? This article may be just more Putin-bashing that the Western media appears to love to do. Can anyone possible imagine that the US has, what could be described as, an imperialistic foreign policy. Christ! Just look, if you dare, at US relations with Latin America. Why are so many Latins anti-American and turning left? And, didn't anyone read about the state of Florida and what is it doing to the history taught in high school classrooms? God love'ya, but open your eyes, please!

St Ann , San Angelo , TX

Well, there's national pride and then there's national pride.

Today Reuters has an interesting article about how British farmers and their methods are recovering some of the richest wheat-growing land in Europe, left derelict after 1990.

Unless President Putin can make Russians once more proud to farm their own land, he risks leaving the country unable to feed itself without outside help.

Ian Kemmish, Biggleswade, UK

**The book describes Josef Stalin as “the most successful Soviet leader ever” and dismisses the prison labour camps and mass purges as a necessary part of his drive to make the country great. **

It seems to me, there are no such words in Russian text: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=782509

Sergey Hudiev, Moscow, Russia

Putin and his accomplices seem to be either mentally misleaded - or simply liars, when ist comes to history. Just as Goebbels and his accomplices were. The world today knows better, the Russian people today know better, wikipedia knows better, and even politicians of European nations do know better.

Peter Wassermann, Hamburg, Germany

Every leader wanst to rewrite the history to make his ideolory, his "line" and himself something like "sacral". Ukrainian governers want the same, but they're dividing the country and "Easren" ideology is now fighting with the "Western". But in Russia paternalistic ang imperial traditions is much stronger. I'm not surprised, but I don't like that tendence VERY MUCH...

Daryna, Mykolayiv, Ukraine

Two predictions - Putin will stay for the third term (people will probably organize huge rallies through the web to demand a referendum to change the Constitution). And secondly - there will be a war with Russia before the Sochi Olympics, either with Europe, or the US, over oil and gas.

What is happening there now is akin to Germany after Hitler came to power - restoring order and national pride, scorning the West, which is in a moral crisis, brainwashing its people,
and most worrying - the idolization of Putin.

michael b, los alamos, usa

So it was very predictible for modern Russia to trasforn back into USSR and even into Russian Impire of Peter Primus and Katerina Secunda. Both had been built upon the Myth of Slavonic Unity, SuperCountry, and suprimasy of Russian People over Ukrainian, Polish or other else. The was no big, hardly any, difference in nationality policy of communists and monarchists.

Eugene, Kyiv, Ukraine

It’s really nonsense what author said. But I guess author does not consider it to be nonsense when American NGO and Soros foundation come to Russia and, saying so, help Russians understand what the ‘real history’ of Russia is. They did not save money ‘helping’ us compose new textbooks for young Russians. Our own history was mired and distorted thanks to these new benefactors. We are just sick and tied of it.

Russian Ivan, Moscow, Russia

Stalin the most successful Soviet leader ever? Putinspeak. War is peace, Slavery is freedom,
totalitarianism is democracy.

Bruce L. Northwood, Washington, D.C., USA

1984 anyone?
And why is it that Russians are so fond of enslaving themselves?

Stanley, Moscow, Russia

History is filled with many atrocities, by many different nations.
A falsified history can give a people a false understanding of who they are. It's never right, regardless of who else has done
it. History is littered with nations and empires that have repeated the mistakes of their predecessors and met the same fate by making the same mistakes.
That it took a long time for the nations of the West to begin to come to terms with their past will by no means absolve Russia, if, through Putin's meddling Russia repeats the sins of the West in addittion to it's own.
Remember what George Orwell warned, " He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past".

Ray, Toronto, Canada

It's interesting that in countries such as Russia, the word "we" is used so ubiquitously, as is the term "Government." The best democracies, such as ours, begin with the individual - individual rights, individual responsibilities, the individual as s/he relates to government, expression, and God. Personally, I rarely kneel down to pray and begin by saying how sorry "we" are for "our" sins or "our" faults". True accountability begins with the word " I ".
How sad that the Russian account of history mentioned in this article glosses over the millions killed and imprisoned, referring only to their deaths in terms of the usefulness to the development of the State/Nation.

KEVIN, Laguna Niguel, United States

Cue up the music, i believe The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" should suffice.

I remember 20 years ago a book that I read about World War II and how it was taught to Soviet students. It certainly was not rooted in reality. Just like these new books are now...

RBB, Washington, DC

The whole thing of rewriting history is very questionable, but a lot of things depend on how history was shaped to fit the doctrine in the past.
A small remark about Stalin, he really was an obssessed paranoid suspecting everyone of trying to topple him over, but the media are silent about the real causes of his persecutions (i.e. what he was fighting against). The media also enjoys portraying Stalin while keeping silent about the gang of butchers who had preceeded him (Trotsky and co.). They never mention that 30(!!!) million Russian people were killed during the 'non-appropriate-to-speak-about' Bolshevik purge, for the simple reason of purging. They never mention the financing channels for Trotsky and co. They also never mention the fact that Britain and US applauded to the new Bolshevik state, whose leaders at that time were busy killing millions.

Alex, Moscow, Russia

Oh. It seems that Russia has become a democracy just like the Western countries. Therefore Russia is imitating them in every single detail in their policy, with one exception. Western billionaires become billionaires in stay where they are. In Russia they have to leave to the West : and guess what with their billions otherwise they are persona non grata. Bad Putin he prevents Russian billionaires from stealing the nation's money.

Adam, Toronto,

The Soveit Union, although dominated by Russia, isn't the same as Russia. I suppose you could say that the USSR was another name for the new Russian Empire that lasted from 1917-1991. Stalin wasn't even Russian, so they are saying that the greatest Russian leader ever was a Georgian. It seems more like they are rewriting Soviet history than Russian history.

John, Murmansk,

USA moto - "WHAT CAN BE CONTROLLED CAN BE CONSUMED"; (CONSUMPTION IN HIDDEN FORM, WILL TO POWER IS ALSO CONSUMPTION)
P.S. WHAT CAN NOT BE CONTROLLED CAN HAVE THEIR IDEOLOGY WHICH IS TRUEST IN WORLD

i doubt
moreover real believe that can move mountains is not for lazy ideology like is imposed by west, may be there must be some self-discipline? like e.g. in Islam or other values? Don't you feel what i am talking about. Why do exist such "terrorists", they just don't want to live with imposed west values, they try to serve not for things but for soul, there is at least one thing - believe
life is a thing from which you won't get alive

Denis, 23, Moscow, Russia

and what? why not to write the history book?

i thought
"The Evil Empire" is something else but not Russia...

petye, helsinki,

Mr Putin is an unrepentant communist. We shouldn't forget that as a KGB officer in East Germany, he may have known of the unspeakable crimes committed there by the Moscow-backed Honecker regime. Therefore, if there was a trial of Communist criminals along the lines of Nuremberg, he would have surely got a life sentence in the very least. Now, using classical Communist guile, he is changing the history textbooks. Stalin had remarked -"History is written by the winning side". How dare he dilute the crimes of Communism! All the murders committed by Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo don't add up to the number of people murdered by the Soviet Union over its 74-year history.

joy july, delhi , india

This, by the way, is why children are never taught contemporary history. Their history books deal with periods of which the thinking has passed out of fashion, and the circumstances no longer apply to active life. For example, they are taught history about Washington, and told lies about Lenin. In Washington's time they were told lies (the same lies) about Washington, and taught history about Cromwell. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they were told lies about Joan, and by this time might very well be told the truth about her. bernard show

Chen, beijing, china

Its amusing to see what hypocrites "educated and civilised" Western people can be. Show me British history text books that reflect truly the devastation the British empire caused in India. Millions died of starvation and thousands slaughtered by the East India Company. What about American genocide of native Indians? How much fair coverage in books, movies or other forms of media does that get?

D, Mumbai,

Sour grapes. Since the West cannot subjugate Russia the way they want the only hing left for you is to print this nonsense

MihailoLazic, Belgrade, Serbia

I guess it was too much to believe "The Evil Empire" would
do a turnaround.. Russia is drifting right back to where
it started. Surprise superise.

Jerry Scroggin, Phoenix, Arizona/USA

I almost wrote that these textbooks appear to be guilty of the old Soviet crime of "Revisionism", but that might have been unfair.

Each nation teaches its own "history" as those in power direct, quite often emphasizing what is favourable and ignoring what is not.
Democratic nations do this too, though usually less than despotic ones like Russia.

The controlling "KGB" leadership is merely rewriting Russia's history to restore national pride and help it control the future course of the nation.
Truth may inde suffered but that's not really important to those in charge, as most Russians henceforth will accept the new written word as the "new truth".

It was most famously done in the 1930's in Germany and in Russia.

One day perhaps, in the far future, when overweening national pride has itself become history, school text books about what has happened in the past may teach less overt propaganda and more facts.

But don't bet on it !

Patrick Hogan, Tallinn, Estonia

I guess it was too much to believe "The Evil Empire" would
do a turnaround.. Russia is drifting right back to where
it started. Surprise superise.

Jerry Scrogginj, Phoenix, Arizona/USA

Does Mr. Putin intend to limit comments regarding democide during the Soviet era to a mere 1.5 million? The real figure is approximately 65 million, almost all during Stalin's murderous realm. If this altered history is allowed to stand, it will come to represent an unforgivable distortion of truth

Walter, San Rafael, CA