assical memory laws defend the memory of all who suffered from crimes committed by the government or with its support. France has laws covering denial of the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire or the fact that the slave trade was a crime against humanity. The memory law proposed in Russia is fundamentally different. It intends, above all, to defend its memory of itself. More precisely, it intends to defend its memory of that régime which many consider criminal. After all, accusations of unleashing war and installing régimes of occupation are accusations levelled at Stalin and Stalinism.