The Bolshevik Past as the First Secretary Likes It

The leaders of all modern states have appreciated to some extent the role played by historical studies in determining a citizenry's world outlook. The keenest sense of awareness has been exhibited by the authoritarian rulers, the self-chosen “men of destiny” who have felt compelled to fulfill—and to generate enthusiasm for—a “historic mission” whose execution would benefit a select people or mankind in general. Thus did the archracist among this century's European despots reflect on April II, 1942, with regard to his new subjects in the east: “To teach the Russians, Ukrainians and Kirghiz to read and write will eventually be to our own disadvantage; education will give the more intelligent among them an opportunity to study history, to acquire an historical sense and hence to develop political ideas which cannot but be harmful to our interests

Authoritarianism · Democracy · Destiny (ISS module · Disadvantage · Enthusiasm · Manifest destiny · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Engineering · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Soviet and Russian History

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  Elisabeth Hunkin•International Affairs•1952

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