OSW Report | Forward, into the past! Russia’s politics of memory in the service of ‘eternal’ authoritarianism

These factors include: the discontinuity of the state system; the legacy of totalitarian repression; the repeated destruc‑ tion of the elites and the social fabric in the 20th century, leading to the absence of intergenerational bonds and discontinuity of memory; and the balancing of entire social groups on the verge of physical survival. [...] The breakup of the USSR left the elite with the belief that the key threat to both the security of the ruling class and the country’s position in the international arena (meaning above all the ability to block external democra‑ tisation impulses) is the weakness of the executive power and its inability to fully control domestic socio‑ political processes. [...] Its alleged purpose is to shape the percep‑ tion of the world, as well as the identity of Russians, in a manner that serves the interests of the enemy, with the aim of breaking the country apart.29 In Russia, the securitisation of history is partly based on the securitisa tion of so called spiritual and moral values. [...] They are: the ethnic policy of the Russian empire (“falsification” allegedly involves attempts to discuss its colonial character), the 1917 revolution, the ethnic policy of the USSR, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the role of the USSR in the victory over fascism (Nazism) in World War II, and the attitude of the USSR towards political crises in the GDR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other formerly soci. [...] Selective, biased presen‑ tation of facts from the past aims to build a myth of innocence in danger and immerse the nation in the cyclically recurring history of martyrdom.47 The rul‑ ers usurp the status of the only heirs and custodians of the great achieve‑ ments of the bygone era – the legacy of the ‘thousand ‑year ‑old Russia’.48 Such a vision, which can ironically be described as ‘forward, in.