But now something had changed—changed radically. After some initial hesitation at the beginning of his time in power, Gorbachev had decreed that the time had come to fill in the “blank spots” of history. There could be no more “rose-colored glasses,” he said. At first, his rhetoric was guarded. He spoke of “thousands” instead of tens of millions of victims. He did not dare criticize Lenin, the demigod of the state. But despite Gorbachev’s hesitation, the return of historical memory would be his most important decision, one that preceded all others, for without a full and ruthless assessment of
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