Press Release, 21.12.2017

The Congresas of the Yabloko party demanded the dismissal of Alexander Bortnikov, Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), who in an interview to the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper stated that Stalin’s reprisals had had an “objective side” and had been operations to “prevent the subversive activity of agents of foreign special services” or had been simply “extremes conducted by local authorities”.

“We qualify these statements as an excuse for Bolshevik and Stalinist terror on the state level. Such assessments by an official of such rank are deeply immoral and once again demonstrate that Bolshevism and Stalinism remain the essence of the present system of power in Russia,” runds the statement adopted by the congress. “This is an insult to the memory of many millions of innocent people who were killed or became victims of executioners”.

In addition, the Yabloko party considers it ethically unacceptable to consider the security agencies of modern Russia as successors and heirs of criminal organisations created as a result of the coup d’état [of October 1917] and officially celebrate this date as the “Day of the Security Officer of the Russian Federation”. The party proposes to consider April 3 the professional holiday of the FSB officers, as the law “On the bodies of the federal security service” was adopted in the new Russia on this day in 1995.

The Yabloko Congress also insists that all state repressive bodies that carried out reprisals and terror, starting with All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) should be recognised criminal organisations.

According to Yabloko, a public and state legal assessment of the coup d’état of October 1917, Bolshevik and Stalinist terror and the decades of the Soviet period is needed. “Only abandoning the Bolshevik methods of governing, having conducted a true de-Stalinisation, inheriting the historical Russia until October 1917, will our state be able to move forward,” the statement said.

The Yabloko party congress honored the memory of Arseniy Roginsky, the founder of the Memorial [human rights] Society, who died on December 18. This is an irreplaceable loss for Russia, said Grigory Yavlinsky, Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of the party.

The 20th Congress of the Yabloko party is being held in Moscow on December 21-22. The Congress should nominate a candidate for Russian President from the party. It is expected that Grigory Yavlinsky will become such a candidate. The name of the presidential candidate will be announced on the second day of the congress, on 22 December.