From Bolshevik Myths to Putin’s Narratives: Continuity in Russia’s Historical Memory

“To what extent is Putin’s weaponisation of history a continuation of Soviet practice?”

“Russia turns to history to create a bellicose, heroic narrative suiting a great world power.”— Stefan Forss, “Russia’s Victim Narrative” (2020)

“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”— George Orwell, 1984

The political manipulation of historical narratives has persistently functioned as the central mechanism of Russian governance under President Vladimir Putin, serving as a tool for legitimising authority, shaping collective identity, and controlling public memory. Such practices demonstrate a significant continuation from Soviet times when history served as a controlled ideological instrument employed to reinforce the legitimacy of Marxist-Leninism. While Soviet systematic revision of history through the construction of narratives legitimising state authority revolved around the promotion of the Communist, Marxist-Leninist ideology, Putin’s instrumentalisation of history for the consolidation of his power has been enacted primarily through his references to Russian historical ‘greatness’, attributing it to ‘timeless’ Russian cultural superiority rather than to Soviet leadership. Recalling the Soviet treatment of history, Russian historian Nikolay Koposov described how “the notion of ideology was closely associated with that of history, for the communist ideology was profoundly historicist”. Arguably, the effectiveness of history as an ideological “lever” on the Russian population used to engineer public perception incentivised the tendency for both the Soviet and Post-Soviet governments to weaponise historical narratives. Grigori Khislavski paraphrases Edgar Wolfrum’s explanation of the weaponisation history, when he writes that “history is used as a weapon when legitimation for aggressive political decisions, mobilization and integration of majorities and exclusion of minorities take place under the umbrella of politics of history claiming sovereignty over memory for itself.” Khislavski’s approach shows striking similarities to Putin’s use of events including Russia’s recent aggressive foreign policy decisions in its annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It can also be applied to Putin’s appropriation of the Great Patriotic War (World War Two) as a foundational myth used to seek popular validation of government actions. Both aspects of Putin’s weaponisation ultimately classifies his use of history as an act of weaponisation and displays a profound continuity of Soviet practices.

The Soviet regime established the foundational framework for the political weaponisation of history through an institutional reliance on censorship, media control and ideological indoctrination, in which the construction of the past further asserts its teleological legitimacy. The Soviet Union under Stalin became a landscape in which the role of historical narratives differed fundamentally from their function in Western liberal societies, where history served as a means of interpretation and understanding, rather than as an ideological tool for the control of public consciousness. This tendency became a unique trait of Soviet misuse of history. With E.H Carr’s statement that “it is he who decides to which facts give the floor, and in what order or context” being widely regarded as a representative of the standards and expectations historiographers are upheld to, the nature of Soviet practices being antithetical and contradictory of the paradigm of historiography thus categorises them as a severe case of misuse and weaponisation of history. Notably, the erasure of Leon Trotsky from Soviet historiography reflects this approach, where the purging of the historical record from ‘inconvenient’ figures, such as Nikolai Yezhov and Lev Kamenev, allowed for the consolidation of Stalin as Lenin’s singular heir. This manipulation of history is exemplified in the delegitimization and systematic erasure of Trotsky. Fulvio Cammarano defines delegitimization as “a process aiming to deny or withdraw recognition of the political opponent” by presenting them as “extraneous to the shared constitutional perimeter.” Its successes are evident in Hannah Arendt’s observation that Trotsky “appears in none of the Soviet Russian history books” in her revelation about the extent to which historical records were systematically rewritten to serve state narratives. This process was institutionalised most notably in the 1938 History of the All-Union Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course, a Soviet textbook commissioned and authored by Joseph Stalin, in which he insisted that “Unless Trotskyism is defeated, it will be impossible to achieve victory under the conditions of NEP, it will be impossible to convert present-day Russia into Socialist Russia”. However, Stalin’s claims of Trotskyism posing as a major threat is ironic – at the time of the textbook’s publication in 1938, Trotsky had been expelled from the politburo since 1926, from the party since 1927, and from the USSR since February 1929. His physical absence, as well as the marginalisation and purging of his supporters in the Left Opposition primarily during the Great Purge (1936-38) when the NKVD targeted Trotskyism as treason, effectively obliterated Trotsky’s presence within the Soviet Union. In fact, Trotskyist revolutionary militant and historian Pierre Broue characterised the threat of Trotskyism in the Soviet Union as a “centre [that]… ceased to be active”, that while “there was a ‘political bloc’, it was not a ‘unified centre’” and was a “hardly-organised ‘bloc’”. Historian Anna Chichocka notes that Stalin’s ability to repurpose historical facts for his own political desires is symbolic of how “history [under Stalin] was completely subordinated to Marxist-Leninist ideology”, where the Soviet leadership was able to “constantly manipulate and rewrite history according to the ever-changing needs of the Soviet regime” resulting in “lies and manipulation on a mass scale.” However, while the weaponisation of history proved to be a new concept in the Soviet Union, Anna Clark notes in her 2010 report on Australian politics that “political opportunism is nothing new”, where “the political potency of national history has been understood for generations”. Clark’s reflection can thus be understood as a reasoning that while the Soviet government did not pioneer the concept of political opportunism, their weaponisation of it at an unprecedented extent through extensive references to historical narratives pioneered the ideological framework for Putin’s approach towards the weaponisation of history. Thus, it becomes evident that the Soviet manipulation of historical memory was a strategy aimed at stabilising ideological authority rather than a response to contingent political struggles.

The Soviet Union appropriated the Great Patriotic War into a politicised myth intended to justify the Communist Party’s authority and to foster national unity in the aftermath of World War II. As highlighted by Nina Tumarkin’s observation that “the ‘Great Patriotic War’ was both a uniquely traumatic ordeal … and the focus of a decadeslong myth and cult that celebrated the most glorious achievement of the Soviet era”, the Soviet regime in the immediate post-1945 period framed victory against Nazi Germany as validation of its own indispensability. This perspective on the necessity of the Soviet Union in its contributions towards the victory is shared by General Zhukov in his memoir where “the greatness of heroic victory over Fascist Germany” was that the Soviet Union “did not defend the socialist state alone but that it selflessly fought to defend… the peoples of Europe from occupation.” By casting the West as a singular adversary in a perpetual ‘us-versus-them’ narrative, the Soviet leadership weaponised the historical memories of struggle in the Second World War to cultivate a constant sense of victimhood that unified the populace behind a single ideal, securing extensive state control. However, the oncoming of a new generation of Soviet citizens unfamiliar with the struggles of war required the enforcing the myth of the Great Patriotic War to ensure continued Communist political influence over the population. Implemented primarily through public events and education of the next generation, including Victory Day parades, school curricula, and memorials, Rustam Almaev recounted that “the process of teaching history was aimed at state patriotism… being a key component of a Soviet school student’s education and upbringing”. By fostering a sense of nationalism in younger generations through instilling propagandistic Soviet historical narratives, it allowed “victory in the war [to be] used as the main basis for legitimizing the Soviet Communist system.” Thus, through the weaponisation of the historical narratives of the Second World War, the Soviet appropriation of the Great Patriotic War as a foundational myth validated its authority while sustaining an ideological ‘grip’ on its population by enforcing the senses of identity and perpetual unity across generations.

The historiographical strategies of the Putin regime do not constitute a rejection of the Soviet model but rather a selective adaptation, established within the framework of a post-ideological nationalism and media-driven authoritarianism. In this regard, while Putin’s use of historical narratives observe significant similarities with Soviet practices, his approach features greater focus on the manipulation of the post-Soviet trauma and identity crisis. Putin’s inauguration as the second president of Russia on the 7th of May 2000 followed the culturally disruptive aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Boris Yeltsin’s disastrous ‘shock therapy’ economic reforms that plummeted the GDP of the new Russian state by 40-50% between 1991 and 1998. As a consequence of such setbacks, the rapidly shifting popular ideological hegemonies in the post-Soviet, post-Yeltsin Russia accepted a political viewpoint that “liberalism and conservatism are considered signs of light while communism is darkness”. To engender his public image as a leader intent on the construction of a ‘new Russia’, rather than an attempt at the resurrection of the Soviet Union, Putin affirmed with this change. His regime’s desired outcomes from weaponising history reflected his political movement – earlier efforts to promote a Marxist-Leninist teleology through selective use of historical narratives were abandoned in favour of promoting an emergent vision of Russian exceptionalism, in which conservative notions of imperial nostalgia and ethno-cultural unity were foregrounded. Under Putin, the past decade of economic and social turmoils were appropriated into a narrative of struggle, in which he compared the “horrible 1990s, hungry, cold and hopeless” to the vulnerability of the Russian state “during the Time of Troubles in the 17th century and in the period of ordeals after the 1917 revolution.” This framing aligns closely with Timothy Synder’s concept of the ‘politics of eternity’, where Putin, dubbed an “eternity politician”, increasingly shifts focus away from progress and policy in favour of cultivating national narratives of perpetual victimhood. By presenting history as cyclical, rather than progressive, Putin reinforces this self-victimisation through examples of past suffering. In this context, political theorist Bakar Bereksashvili argues that Putin’s use of historical narratives, notably those discussing the collapse of the Soviet Union, functions as a recurring tactic where “political ideologies target nationalism in order to domesticate it”, suggesting that historical narratives are mobilised pragmatically as a legitimisation of his power.

Central to Putin’s shift from Soviet Marxist-Leninist historiography to a nationalist cultural narrative is his rehabilitation of Stalin’s legacy and elevation of the Second World War victory as the cornerstone of Russian identity. Following a period of divergence away from Soviet notions and communist references early in his presidency, Putin’s reaffirmation of Russian historical ‘greatness’ stemmed largely from his effective use of the narratives of the Second World War as a unifying factor for state power and national pride. Sydney Stotter exemplifies the process in which such narratives require “the role of patriotic education [being] increasingly central to President Putin’s agenda”, where “school curriculum and textbooks are being rewritten to present interpretations of history that justify Russian foreign policy.” Thus, the status of the war transcends a mere military victory, becoming a national symbol for moral triumph of the Russian ‘spirit’ – a narrative reinscribed through state ceremonies, educational reforms and legal frameworks. As with Putin’s justification of Russia’s military interventions in Syria and Ukraine, journalist Maria Domanska comments on how “the sacralised Soviet victory over Nazism is the central element of the politics of memory” where it becomes weaponised by “the Kremlin’s ideological offensive” to “legitimise Russia’s great power ambitions.” Putin’s transformation of a historical event into a ‘quasi-religious cornerstone’ of national identity is evident in the sanctification’s extension into public rituals, notably the May 9 Victory Day ceremonies. In this, Cynthia R. Nielsen describes the consequential effects as having “taken on an almost religious, cultic character”, where citizens participate in the “immortal regiment” procession, carrying portraits of relatives who were casualties of the war. Putin’s reliance on the control over historical memory through the glorification of the past reinforces a collective identity centred on sacrifice and heroism, where combined with the ‘farce’ of a perpetual victimhood stemming from the glorified memories of Nazi defeat, where foreigners wage a “forever war against Russia”, unifies the population under the perception of a single enemy. This effect is enhanced by the Russian government’s response towards internal dissent with “an onslaught of historical propaganda aimed at convincing Russians”, and that they are in “a great nation resisting historical and cultural colonisation [by the west].” The mythology of Russia as an incessant victim allows its government to characterise external influences, particularly from the ‘villainised West’ as ‘evil’ and designate the state as the protector of the ‘eternal’ Russia. Russia’s policy of altering historical narratives has proven necessary for the consolidation of Putin’s influence amongst the population, where the rewriting “became a state effort… with a double purpose”; it maintained “Russia’s own interpretation of historical events” while “limiting the influence of conflicting Western narratives inside the Russian public domain.” Often noticeable also, is Putin’s use of selective ‘facts’ in an attempt to glorify the achievements of the USSR while condemning the West, notably in his article on the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory against Nazi Germany that “the Nazis were defeated first and foremost by the entire Soviet people.” However, foreign analyst Stefan Forss’ 2020 report describes how Russian state narratives “deny and obfuscate the role and plans of the Soviet Union as a partner of Nazi Germany to carve up Europe and start World War II”, where narratives such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact or the post-1945 order deliberately avoided by Putin to promote a singular perspective of the Russian political landscape. Sergey Radchenko enforces this perspective of Putin’s misuse of history in stating that “[Putin] is not a trained historian. He does not understand historiography. He has no conception of historical methodology… instead, he turns to history to legitimise world view.” Radchenko’s insistence on the role of history under Putin serving “merely a utilitarian function. It is a foundation for present day narratives” is furthered by Nielsen’s comment that “when one’s historically informed (or de-formed) narrative is transformed into a History that cannot be contested or challenged… one’s Historical narrative becomes a propagandistic weapon.” This reimagining of the Second World War as a unifying national myth reflects how Putin’s use of history, though adapted to a new ideological context, closely mirrors Soviet practices in its purpose to utilise the past as a tool for legitimising power, shaping public identity, and controlling of national narratives.

Ultimately, Putin’s weaponisation of history is a continuation of Soviet-era myth-making, recycling the Great Patriotic War and a us-versus-them framework to legitimize authority and forge unity. However, it departs from its Marxist-Leninist origins by recasting Russia’s past as proof of timeless cultural superiority and leveraging modern media-driven nationalism rather than strictly ideological indoctrination. As such, contemporary Russian adaptions of Soviet myth-making highlight the significance historical use holds in the Kremlin’s governing strategies.

Bibliography:

Books

1. Koposov, Nikolay. Memory Laws, Memory Wars: The Politics of the Past in Europe and Russia. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

2. Carr, Edward Hallett. What Is History? Reprint ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. p. 11.

3. Stalin, Joseph. History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1938.

4. Laruelle, Marlene. Russian Nationalism: Imaginaries, Doctrines and Political Battlefields.

5. Snyder, Timothy. The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America. New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2018.

Journal Articles & Conference Proceedings

1. Khislavski, Grigori. “Weaponizing History: Russia’s War in Ukraine and the Role of Historical Narratives.” Journal of Applied History 4, nos. 1–2 (2022): 102–25, at 106.

2. Cammarano, Fulvio. “Delegitimization: A Useful Category for Political History.” RP (2017): 65–37.

3. Clark, Anthony. “Politicians Using History.” Australian Journal of Politics & History 56 (2010): 120–31.

4. Tumarkin, Nina. “The Great Patriotic War as Myth and Memory.” European Review 11, no. 4 (October 2003): 595–611.

5. Pasini, Mirella. “Us vs. Them: Ideology and Discourse.” Nordicum-Mediterraneum 14, no. 2 (September 2019).

6. Almaev, Rustam, Vladimir Antonov, Ildar Baishev, and Marat Yanborisov. “History School Textbooks Evolution in Russia.” In European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences: Humanistic Practice in Education in a Postmodern Age, 41–50. 15 November 2020.

7. Berekashvili, Bakar. “Ideological Dialectics of Post-Soviet Nationalism.” The Copernicus Journal of Political Studies 2 (2021): 73–90.

8. Arribas, Cristina M., Rubén Arcos, Manuel Gértrudix, et al. “Information Manipulation and Historical Revisionism: Russian Disinformation and Foreign Interference through Manipulated History-Based Narratives.” Open Research Europe 3 (27 July 2023): 1–21.

9. Radchenko, Sergey. “Putin’s Histories.” Contemporary European History 32, no. 1 (2023): 57–60.

Internet & Electronic Resources

1. Putin, Vladimir. “75th Anniversary of the Great Victory: Shared Responsibility to History and Our Future.” Kremlin.ru, 19 June 2020. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/63527.

2. Gessen, Masha. “The Photo Book That Captured How the Soviet Regime Made the Truth Disappear.” The New Yorker, 15 July 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-photo-book-that-captured-how-the-soviet-regime-made-the-truth-disappear.

3. Broué, Pierre. “The ‘Bloc’ of the Oppositions against Stalin (January 1980).” Marxists.org. Accessed 6 May 2025. https://www.marxists.org/archive/broue/1980/01/bloc.html.

4. Cichocka, Anna. The Falsification of Memory: History as a Tool of Communist Propaganda. Communist Crimes. Accessed 6 May 2025. https://communistcrimes.org/en/falsification-memory-history-tool-communist-propaganda.

5. Polehkyi, Oleksii. “Never Again vs. We Can Repeat It: Russians Will Pay Any Price to Restore the Glory of Soviet Victory in WWII.” Forum for Ukrainian Studies, 11 June 2022. https://ukrainian-studies.ca/2022/06/11/never-again-vs-we-can-repeat-it-russians-will-pay-any-price-to-restore-the-glory-of-soviet-victory-in-wwii%EF%BF%BC/.

6. Dresen, Joseph F. “The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry.” Kennan Institute, Wilson Center, 7 July 2011. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-piratization-russia-russian-reform-goes-awry.

7. Putin, Vladimir. “Signing of Treaties on Accession of Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions to Russia.” Kremlin.ru, 30 September 2022. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69465.

8. de Vreij, Hans. “Transcript: Vladimir Putin’s Speech on the Illegal Annexation of Ukrainian Territories and Relations with the West.” Hans de Vreij’s blog, 1 October 2022. https://hansdevreij.com/2022/10/01/transcript-vladimir-putins-speech-on-the-illegal-annexation-of-ukrainian-territories-and-relations-with-the-west/.

9. Snyder, Timothy. “Vladimir Putin’s Politics of Eternity.” The Guardian, 16 March 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/16/vladimir-putin-russia-politics-of-eternity-timothy-snyder.

10. Domanska, Maria. “The Myth of the Great Patriotic War as a Tool of the Kremlin’s Great Power Policy.” OSW Centre for Eastern Studies, 31 December 2019. https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-commentary/2019-12-31/myth-great-patriotic-war-a-tool-kremlins-great-power-policy.

11. Liu, Serena. “Russian History and the Ukrainian Invasion: How Putin Tries to Turn the Past into the Present.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs (blog), 21 April 2022. https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2022/04/21/russian-history-and-the-ukrainian-invasion-how-putin-tries-to-turn-the-past-into-the-present/.

12. Nielsen, Cynthia R. “Putin’s Use and Abuse of History as a Political Weapon.” Blog of the APA, 18 September 2024. https://blog.apaonline.org/2024/09/18/putins-use-and-abuse-of-history-as-a-political-weapon/.

13. McGlynn, Jade. “Imposing the Past: Putin’s War for History.” War on the Rocks, 15 March 2023. https://warontherocks.com/2023/03/imposing-the-past-putins-war-for-history/.

14. Davis, Ana. “Conformity and Victimization in Putin’s Russia.” The New Contemporary: Notes from the Havighurst Center, 12 October 2022. https://sites.miamioh.edu/havighurst/2022/10/12/conformity-and-victimization-in-putins-russia/.

15. Forrs, Stefan. “Russia’s Victim Narrative.” Frivarld.se, 30 November 2020. https://frivarld.se/rapporter/russias-victim-narrative/.

16. Heinemann-Grüder, Andreas. “Memory, Myth, and Militarisation: Russia’s War Propaganda and the Construction of Legitimised Violence in Ukraine.” Centre for Democratic Integrity. Accessed 8 May 2025. https://democratic-integrity.eu/memory-myth-and-militarisation/.

17. Stotter, Sydney. “Childhood Under Siege: The Evolution of World War II Education in Russian Memory Politics.” Davis Center, Harvard University, 9 May 2022. https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/childhood-under-siege-evolution-world-war-ii-education-russian-memory-politics.