ABSTRACT
In the course of the campaign for glasnost, writers and historians called for more truth about the dark periods of Soviet history. It had been stated in the press that the rewriting of Soviet history had become commonplace, resulting in a credibility crisis in the work of Soviet historians. Iurii Afanasev criticized the leading Soviet expert on Stalinism, V. Kasianenko, for not having revealed enough about Stalin's terror, and complained that Western historians had produced far more research about Stalin than their Soviet counterparts. Afanasev suggested republishing the materials of all party congresses and conferences and restructuring the work of the Soviet archives. The doyen of Soviet historians, ninety-two-year-old Academician Isaak Mints, also spoke out against "blank pages" in history. Although himself one of those most responsible for falsifying and rewriting history, Mints complained in an interview with tass that the names of certain old Bolsheviks purged by Stalin were not known to the public.
