shame even some anti-Communist rhetoricians. Khrushchevnaccused Stahn of mass murder, exterminations, megalomania,ntorture of even his closest collaborators, failure asnwar leader, cowardice, hysteria, caprice, and despotism.nSuch a memory—anti-Stalinist in content but not, ofncourse, anti-Leninist—was permitted only to the top Sovietnleadership, since the speech has been published only in thenWest, though its contents were known to party members.nFor a while, the new memory was allowed even some lessernpersonages, like Solzhenitsyn (who, during the so-callednthaw, published One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich).nBut Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin speech as a part of The SinglenLie was no different from Stalin’s volte face about Hitlernbetween 1939 and 1941.nWith Khrushchev’s ouster, what little was left of thenanti-Stalin memory was replaced with new versions undernKhrushchev’s successors, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov,nKonstantin Chernenko, and now Mikhail Gorbachev.nIn keeping with their mnemocratic policies, Soviets todaynact as if Khrushchev’s anti-Stalin speech at the 20thnCommunist Party Congress had never been heard, becausenit was never made. The new memory demands the rehabilitationnof Stalin.nIt is worth examining Gorbachev’s V-E anniversarynspeech of May 8, 1985, from the standpoint of memoryncontrol. Gorbachev blamed “imperialism” and its Munichnappeasement policies for World War II. He ignored thenshocking Soviet-Nazi collusion which began with thensigning of the nonaggression pact of August 1939, which, atnthe very least, made it possible for Hitler to start the worldnwar. He paid special tribute to Stalin’s command economy,nwhich, he said, had “proved its viability” and “superiority,”nwhile he ignored Stalin’s inhumanities and his 1919-1939nreign of terror.nThen Gorbachev, following the example of previousnparty leaders, praised Stalin’s role as wartime commandernin chief Said Gorbachev:nThe gigantic work at the front and in the rear wasnguided by the Party, its Central Committee and thenState Defense Committee headed by the generalnsecretary of the All-Union Communist Partyn(Bolsheviks), Josef Vissarionovich Stalin.nAccording to press reports, this part of Gorbachev’s speechnwas received with prolonged applause in the Kremlin Palacenof Congresses, by an audience of 6,000 war veterans, armynofficers, party members, and workers. These then weren6,000 Soviet citizens who fit the Korsakoff psychosis. Theynaccepted “false and fabricated accounts of recent events,”nillustrating the amnesiac confabulatory disorder describednearlier. For them it was perfectly normal behavior. That thennumber of Stalin’s victims is conservatively estimated at 20nmillion at least (coinciding with the USSR’s total war lossesnas cited by Gorbachev) was overlooked by both Gorbachevnand the Soviet media. As far as Soviet memory is concerned,nthere were no years of terror during the Stalin era.nOn Soviet television a special drama series. Strategy ofnVictory, recently emphasized Stalin’s wisdom. Forgottennwas the de-Stalinization undertaken by Khrushchev, who,nfor example, in 1961 renamed Stalingrad as Volgograd.nNow it may become Stalingrad again because a veterans’nassociation in Volgograd has asked the Soviet Party CentralnCommittee to restore the city’s earlier name.nIn a recent Soviet film. Red Bells (it deals with JohnnReed, of the Reds fame), Stalin emerges as Lenin’s closestncollaborator, which is pure fiction. Stalin is shown urgingnZinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotsky to seize the WinternPalace. Says Stalin: “If we do not attack, we shall loseneverything.” How true that was. All three did, indeed, loseneverything at Stalin’s hands, including their lives. Sovietnmnemocracy does not recall such events. But this mnemocrahcnspirit may be a continuous feature of Russian history.nIn 1938, the Marquis de Custine described a tragic accidentnin the Gulf of Finland when a sudden squall sank manynboatloads of people sailing from Petersburg to a royal gala atnPeterhof. There was no mention of the tragedy in newspapers,nit was not discussed—it simply hadn’t happened. AsnCustine observed:nIn Russia history forms part of the domain of thencrown; it is the moral property of the prince, just asnthe people and the land are his material property; itnis kept in the storeroom along with the imperialntreasures, and only that part of it which the rulernwishes to make known is displayed. The memory ofnwhat happened yesterday [the accident on the Gulfnof Finland] is the property of the Czar; he alters thenannals of the country according to his own goodnpleasures and dispenses, each day, to his people thenhistoric truths which accord with the fiction of thenmoment.nCase histories of Soviet memory control are infinite sincenthe story of the Soviet Union is first of all memory control.nFrom this mnemocratic system comes The Single Lie/nSingle Truth system which means that everything said,npublished, broadcast, or otherwise disseminated by thenUSSR, inside and outside its borders, is simultaneouslynboth a truth and a lie. Nothing held as true today willnnecessarily be true tomorrow. Moreover, it is assumed itnwill not be true tomorrow.nNothing so exemplifies The Single Lie/Single Truthnsystem as the Soviet constitution, whether Stalin’s ornBrezhnev’s. It is rare one can say of any text that virtuallynevery word in it is a lie including “and” and “the.” From thenconstitution’s preamble and chapters I to IX (with thenexception of chapter VIII, which, not altogether truthfully,ndescribes the emblem, flag, anthem, and capital of thenUSSR) every word in it is false, including the famousnArticle 72 (“Each Union Republic shall retain the rightnfreely to secede from the USSR”).nAlain Besangon, the French historian, says that thenSoviet lie “is not a lie. It is a false pretense of a lie, a lyingnlie, a pseudo lie. In that country everything is false, evennthe lie”:n[W]hen Brezhnev, after Lenin, declares that thenSoviet citizen is the freest in the world, he is notnlying. He is basing his statement upon pseudonreality, where words receive a new and very specificnmeaning. According to that same ideologicalnreality, the Swiss cihzen does not enjoy freedom.nThe opposite of the lie is truth, which is given annnSEPTEMBER 1987 121n