Contemporary History in the Soviet Mirror

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Contemporary History in the Soviet Mirror (1964) is devoted to a critical examination of Soviet writings on contemporary history. The demands of the Communist Party, striving following the death of Stalin to replace the old myths with new ones, encountered the opposition of individual historians. The needs of the ‘ideological front’ clashed with their professional conscience about historical facts. Yet the Party’s claim to be the infallible interpreter of historical truth would be undermined if its authority about the past could be challenged; now, as before, ‘he who controls the past controls the present.’ In Krushchev’s Russia, however, it was not only the image of the past, but the degree of control over it which was modified.

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