DISINFO: Joseph Stalin was a father of the Belarusian nation
SUMMARY
The transformation of Belarusians into a nation mainly took place in 1920s – 1950s. The Belarusian nation’s father, a Belarusian George Washington, was Joseph Stalin. Lavrentiy Tsanava was a Belarusian Thomas Jefferson.
RESPONSE
This message misrepresents the Belarus' history, as Joseph Stalin contributed to the demise of Belarusian elites, rather than contribute to the development of the Belarusian nation. According to incomplete estimates, approximately 600,000 people fell victim to Soviet repression in Belarus between 1917 and 1953. The repression peaked during the 1930s and especially during the USSR-wide Great Purge of 1937-1938, in times of Joseph Stalin as a head of the USSR and Lavrentiy Tsanava as a head of BSSR's NKVD (as of late 1938). The purges of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic elites were more thorough than in any other republic, leading to the demise of 90 per cent of the Belarusian intelligentsia, historian Per Anders Rudling concludes in his PhD thesis. See an ealier disinformation case alleging that the victims of Stalin's repression were not innocent.