Originally posted by colloredbrothers
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I have never seen a president take so much initiatif, not in my country not in America. Most presidents don't get anything done, while Medvedev gets huge things done in a very fast pace compared to our politicians.

I have great hopes for russia.

Archives seized

The primary evidence comes in the form of a new manual for history teachers in the country's schools, which says Stalin acted "entirely rationally".

"[The initiative] came from the very top," says the editor of the manual, historian Alexander Danilov.

"I believe it was the idea of former president, now prime minister, Vladimir Putin.

"It fits completely with the political course we have had for the last eight years, which is dedicated to the unity of society."

But the campaign goes further than reinterpreting history for schoolchildren. It is also physical.

Earlier this month, riot police raided the St Petersburg office of one of Russia's best-known human rights organisations, Memorial.

Claiming a possible link with an "extremist" article published in a local newspaper, the police took away 12 computer hard-drives containing the entire digital archive of the atrocities committed under Stalin.

Memorial's St Petersburg office specialises in researching the crimes committed by the Soviet regime.

"It's a huge blow to our organisation," says Irina Flige, the office director.

"This was 20 years' work. We'd been making a universally accessible database with hundreds of thousands of names.

"Maybe this was a warning to scare us?"

Irina Flige believes they were targeted because they are now on the wrong side of a new ideological divide.