ABSTRACT
During the Soviet period, the history of the peoples of the USSR was periodically rewritten to suit changing political demands. Thus, at the outset of the Soviet regime, Russian colonial expansion was condemned and the national resistance struggles against tsarist Russian armies were glamorized. The “feudal” and “bourgeois” past of all the nations, and especially of Russia itself, was derided. The historical role of both individuals and states was minimized while the social history of the masses emphasized. The leading proponent of the new approach was the Russian historian Mikhail Pokrovskii, who had developed his revisionist views of history prior to the October Revolution.
