Editorial: Break with the past

Tuesday, May 10, 2005 | 9:18 a.m.

On Monday the world's leaders, including President Bush, were in Moscow to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Allies' victory over Nazi Germany. It was an extraordinary sight to see a U.S. president, sitting next to the Russian president, watch a military parade in Red Square to mark the occasion. And while Bush had kind words for Russian President Vladimir Putin during his two-day stop in Russia, that wasn't the most substantive news from the president's overseas trip.

Specifically, Bush put distance between himself and Putin by showing U.S. support for Eastern European democracies -- once under Soviet communist domination -- that have been at odds with Russia. The former Soviet-bloc nations were unhappy that Putin, in the run-up to Monday's ceremonies, refused to denounce the past oppression and instead tried to portray the Soviet Union as a liberator following World War II. To suggest that communist-imposed rule for more than four decades in Eastern Europe was somehow a "liberation" is nothing short of Orwellian -- although totally in line for Putin, a former KGB officer.

Bush, to his credit, on Friday visited the Baltic nation of Latvia as a demonstration of solidarity with the fledgling democracies that no longer are under Soviet tyranny. In a speech to Latvian leaders, Bush said what Putin could not bring himself to say: The Soviet Union's totalitarian rule after World War II "will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history." And Bush, after he left Russia, visited another country once in the Soviet orbit -- Georgia -- that is now a democracy with a strained relationship with Russia. Today Bush told tens of thousands of cheering people in Tbilisi, Georgia, that their successful struggle for freedom serves as "a beacon of liberty for this region and this world."

If Russia is to move forward as a democracy, it not only has to eradicate corruption and genuinely embrace freedom at home, but it also has to give up the nostalgia for its former empire and forthrightly own up to its discredited past. Additionally, we hope that Bush continues to champion democracy and freedom around the globe, including the open criticism of regimes that for decades have had it easy because they have been viewed as strategic allies of the United States.