Editing Historical revisionism (section)

=== Soviet Union and Russia ===
[[Soviet Union]] frequently resorted to changing its [[official history]] to suit changes in state policy, especially after splits in the [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] leadership or change of political alliances.<ref name=":0" /> The book [[History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)]] was subject to numerous such changes to reflect removal of Bolshevik leaders previously trusted by Stalin but did not support him unanimously.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kołakowski |first=Leszek |title=Main Currents of Marxism |quote=Its lies and suppressions were too obvious to be overlooked by readers who had witnessed the events in question: all but the youngest party members knew who Trotsky was and how collectivization had taken place in Russia, but, obliged as they were to parrot the official version, they became co-authors of the new past and believers in it as party-inspired truth. If anyone challenged this truth on the basis of manifest experience, the indignation of the faithful was perfectly sincere. In this way Stalinism really produced the ‘[[new Soviet man]]’: an ideological schizophrenic, a liar who believed what he was saying, a man capable of incessant, voluntary acts of intellectual self- mutilation.}}</ref> [[Great Soviet Encyclopedia]] was also redacted frequently, with subscribers of the paper book receiving letter to cut out pages e.g. about [[Lavrentiy Beria]] or [[Nikolai Bukharin]] and replace them with unrelated articles.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hIN1DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 |title=The Materiality of Text – Placement, Perception, and Presence of Inscribed Texts in Classical Antiquity: Placement, perception, and presence of inscribed texts in classical antiquity |date=October 22, 2018 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-37943-5 |language=en}}</ref> Historic photos were also frequently edited to remove people who later lost trust of the Party.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=King |first=David |title=[[The Commissar Vanishes]] |publisher=Canongate Books |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-86241-724-6}}</ref>
{{Main|Censorship of images in the Soviet Union}}
The process of rewriting history of USSR and post-1991 Russia was once again restarted in 2010's after [[War in Donbas (2014–2022)|Russia's first attack on Ukraine]] and intensified after 2022 [[Russian invasion of Ukraine|full-scale invasion in Ukraine]]. History school books received significant changes which reflected the changes in the official history narratives: for example, while 2010 books openly mentioned decrease of [[life expectancy]] in Soviet Union caused shortages and insufficient spending on public healthcare, new 2023 books vaguely states that life expectancy has generally increased and instead focused on unspecified "achievements in the sphere of education and science". In chapters on Stalin, he's once again presented as a great tragedy to ordinary Russians and any mentions of repressions have disappeared. Similar changes were introduced in chapters discussing Soviet economy, space program, [[Leonid Brezhnev|Brezhnev]], [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|collapse of USSR]], [[perestroika]] and [[glasnost]], where the phrase "freedom of speech" started to be used in [[scare quotes]] and presented as something harmful. [[Soviet–Afghan War|Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979]] which was presented as Soviet contribution into the fight against radical Islamism, completely contradicting both Soviet and post-Soviet narratives.<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 2, 2023 |title="Именовали умершего вождя тираном": что изменилось в учебнике истории |url=https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6187400 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230902083030/https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6187400 |archive-date=2023-09-02 |access-date=2023-09-06 |website=Коммерсантъ |language=ru}}</ref>

Also, since 2014, Russian law enforcement started to prosecute public statements which do not comply with the current version of Russian history. Article 354.1 of [[Criminal Code of Russia]] which makes "rehabilitation of Nazism" a crime has been applied both to actual statements praising [[Nazism]], but also to statements which recalled [[Germany–Soviet Union relations, 1918–1941|Nazi-Soviet cooperation]] 1939–1941 or [[Soviet war crimes]] conducted in other countries. In some cases article 20.3 of [[Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses]] is also being applied in these cases.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Как в России судят за "фальсификацию истории": доклад "Агоры" |url=https://meduza.io/feature/2018/05/10/kak-v-rossii-sudyat-za-falsifikatsiyu-istorii-doklad-agory |access-date=2023-09-06 |website=Meduza |language=ru}}</ref>