[6] The commission was staffed by then current and former State Duma members, such as Natalia Narochnitskaya, Sergey Markov and Konstantin Zatulin, and officials of Russia's armed forces and FSB, including General of the army Nikolay Makarov.
[10] Human rights activist and former lawmaker Lev Ponomaryov dubbed the decree openly totalitarian and claimed that it discredited President Medvedev as a lawyer.
The business daily Vedomosti noted the name of the commission leaves the way clear for the falsification of history in favor of Russia, establishing a "cult of victory"—similar to the civil religions upon which authoritarian and totalitarian states have been built in the past.
"[15] According to the newspaper Vremya Novostei, the struggle over historical truth in Russia declared at the highest level has taken grotesque form as an article by historian Sergey Kovalyov published on the official website of the Russian Ministry of Defence blamed Poland for starting World War II.
Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin lawmaker and member of the commission, said the new body would not imprison people or blacklist historians whose analyses it disagrees with.
[citation needed] Nezavisimaya Gazeta published the responses of historian Natalya Narochnitskaya, who said "they try to convince us that it was not we who won the Great Patriotic War, that it was Americans."
Regarding attempts at equating the Communism imposed on Eastern Europe with Nazism, she claimed that "agrarian peoples: Czechs, Poles, Romanians, Hungarians left us with violins, professors, academicians, cinematographers, whereas Hitler planned for them fates of pig herders and janitors.