MOSCOW, September 21. /TASS/. A senior lawmaker from Russia's upper house of parliament submitted a bill on Monday seeking to prevent what is termed "rehabilitation" of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's totalitarian rule.
Proposals from Konstantin Dobrynin, deputy chair of the Federation Council’s Committee for Constitutional Legislation and State Construction, say material justifying political repressions of the Stalin era should be likened to extremism, and lays its foundations.
"Information material justifying mass political repressions, deportation or other repressive measures against 'the peoples as necessary' should be labeled as extremist and banned from circulation in Russia," he said.
"Stalin’s repressions were unprecedented in their scale and affected the whole of Soviet society," Dobrynin noted. "An idealised, one-sided image of Stalin’s epoch rejecting historical reality has been increasingly advocated among the population over recent years," he said.
This "greatly harms the Russian state and society," the lawmaker added.