MINSK, 1 September (BelTA) – We must be objective in assessing the history and historical figures of different periods, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he spoke at the open lesson "Historical memory - the road to the future" on 1 September, BelTA has learned.
The head of state mentioned the notorious 1930s in the Soviet Union. He acknowledged that there is no smoke without fire, but no one definitively knows what exactly happened at that time and why. The truth is that the past events and the way certain things are presented in the subsequent periods always has a political touch.
On the other hand, he emphasized that the achievements were indeed made during the period of Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria. One of them was the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR. Despite the threats such weapons pose, they simultaneously serve as a deterrent. “We would have been wiped out long ago if not for the fear of nuclear weapons. This is the achievement of Stalin and Beria,” the Belarusian leader said.
“One should think very carefully before starting to criticize certain pages in history, certain historical personalities,” the Belarusian head of state said.
He agreed with priest Fyodor Povny that such assessments should always be approached with kindness. “History is a complicated science, a very complicated process. One must always be as objective, spiritual and truthful as possible,” the president said.
