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Stalin acted ‘entirely rationally’ in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulags, a controversial new Russian teaching manual claims.

Fifty-five years after the Soviet dictator died, the latest guide for teachers to promote patriotism among the Russian young said he did what he did to ensure the country’s modernisation.

The manual, titled A History of Russia, 1900-1945, will form the basis of a new state-approved text book for use in schools next year.

It seems to follow an attempt backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to re-evaluate Stalin’s record in a more positive light.

Critics have taken exception, however, to numerous excerpts, which they say are essentially attempts to whitewash Stalin’s crimes.

In the West, it has been widely accepted that in the 1920s millions were shot, exiled to Siberia, or died of starvation after their land, homes and meagre possessions, were taken to fulfil Stalin’s vision of massive ‘factory farms.’

In the 1930s millions more whom he considered or suspected a threat to the USSR were executed or exiled to Gulag labour camps in remote areas of Siberia or Central Asia, where many also died of disease, malnutrition and exposure.

Historians believe up to 20 million people perished as a result of his actions - more than the six million killed during Hitler’s genocide of the Jews. [...]

The manual informs teachers that the Great Terror of the 1930s came about because Stalin ‘did not know who would deal the next blow, and for that reason he attacked every known group and movement, as well as those who were not his allies or of his mindset.’

It stresses to teachers that ‘it is important to show that Stalin acted in a concrete historical situation’ and that he acted ‘entirely rationally - as the guardian of a system, as a consistent supporter of reshaping the country into an industrialised state.’