I came across this tonight. It’s from back in May, but I thought it was interesting. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev discusses WWII and the role the Soviet Union played. He also gives his views on the legacy of Joseph Stalin. He even touts “Saving Private Ryan” calling it a “very good movie” and “professionally done” but questions its accuracy.

Putin likes to flirt with the idea that Stalin wasn’t so bad and the collapse of the USSR was a tragedy. Medvedev doesn’t appear to share that view. Of course that’s probably because he wasn’t a KGB thug like Putin.

In an explosive interview with the AP, former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev had some very frank things to say about Vladimir Putin and his United Russia Party:

Mikhail Gorbachev says Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party is similar to "the worst of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" and that Russia is today a country where the parliament and judiciary are not fully free.

Gorbachev also says the global economic crisis showed capitalism should be tempered with elements of the socialist system he played a critical role in sweeping away.

Kudos to Gorbachev for being intellectually honest about the political situation in Putin’s Russia. Putin has stacked every level of government with his KGB cronies and taken people’s rights away. Those who deny that Russia is backsliding rapidly into the sins of the past are either blind or just liars.

Interestingly enough, Gorbachev is viewed as a traitor by many Russians. They blame him for the fall of the Soviet Empire and look at him with disdain. Putin has gone out of his way to push this point of view while at the same time diminishing the crimes of Joseph Stalin.