On the waves of historical memory

Innumerable are the times and the grounds, based on which post-Soviet nations are suggested today to repent of their sins and to clear themselves (though not only post-Soviet countries have their skeletons in the cupboards). But repentance is a personal issue with purely personal and by no way collective responsibility (and collective responsibility is a notion proposed and implemented by Hitler to Jews). Human beings must answer for their actions, no matter were they performed in or out of community. But if an unpleasant action was performed under the strict compulsion of the society, that should be regarded as extenuating circumstances. One can’t blame the whole nation for the crimes of its leaders; every representative of that nation would become a criminal and the whole nation – a gang of villains then. Though, those representatives of a nation who were involved in crimes are, perhaps, to be condemned. A collective repentance is sought be the representatives of a certain classes, so it might be reasonable to talk about class repentance. Say, a farmer in our country doesn’t have to repent of Stalin’s crimes, but the artistic intellectuals who reproach the today’s nation with these crimes probably should, as it were smart temporizers who supported Stalin’s regime ideologically, and not only Stalin’s and not only in our country. But there’re no volunteers from their kind to confess, and none of them intends to do their job with all responsibility, but creates a deliberately false ideological product again and again without being ashamed.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/waves-historical-memory