Russian Revolution, 1987-1991

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Edward Lucas, Freedom Unleashed. In the late 1980s, a brief flowering of Russian truth-telling exploded myths and revealed the depredations of Soviet rule. Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2012
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 92524118839192.html
(Leon Aron, Roads to the Temple. Truth, memory, ideas, and deals in the making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991. Yale University Press, 2012)

Quote:

"The stories unearthed were of mass murder, colossal waste, vile prejudice and grotesque dishonesty. Many of those wrongs were exposed but not righted.

"Soviet medicine was revealed as a disaster. A doctor 'cried out' to a Pravda interviewer in 1987 about the lack of ultrasound equipment, shortages that led to the deaths of countless babies: 'Not a single Soviet-made [ultrasound] machine in thirty years! In the era of space exploration!'

"Even if the Soviet Union had been an economic, cultural and social success story, it could scarcely have survived the revelation that it was based on the murder by shooting and starvation of millions of innocent people, and the enslavement of tens of millions. As Mr. Aron recounts, secret archives were opened and firsthand accounts by former prisoners were aired.

Note:
(a) For Moskovskie Novosti, see Moskovskiye Novosti
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moskovskiye_Novosti
(Russian for "Moscow News")
(b) Literaturnaya gazeta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literaturnaya_gazeta
(Russian for Literary Newspaper)