The Russian edition of Everything Is Bad: A Book of Hope by American writer Mark Manson has been censored: several lines in which the author compares the USSR to Nazi Germany are hidden. A footnote at the bottom of the page explains that this is done as required by Russian law.
A photo of the 1st page of the book, published by Alpina Publisher in 2022, was published by one of the Twitter users. The picture also shows a footnote explaining that “part of the text was removed” in accordance with the requirements of Article 6.1 of the Federal Law “On Perpetuating the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.”
Another user showed a photo of the same page in the Russian-language edition of Manson's 2020 book, where the text is published in full. Some interviewees accused the publisher of censorship, while others noted that the publishers did the right thing by defiantly obscuring the text, rather than simply deleting it.
Alpina Publisher responded to a request from the Telegram channel "Caution, News" that the book "clearly indicates on what basis part of the text was removed – in accordance with the requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation."
Article 6.1, included in the law in July 2021, prohibits the “public identification” of the actions of the leadership of the USSR and Nazi Germany, as well as the “denial of the decisive role of the Soviet people in the defeat of Nazi Germany.”
In April 2022, a law was passed on penalties for publicly identifying the role of the USSR and Nazi Germany during World War II.
It is noteworthy that the impetus for the campaign, which ended with the adoption of a law prohibiting comparing the USSR with Nazi Germany, was given precisely by the work of Mark Manson. In October 2020, the head of the State Duma Committee on Culture, Yelena Yampolskaya, complained to Vladimir Putin that books were being published in Russia containing "bullshit – impudent, unsubstantiated, offensive." The deputy did not name Manson, but cited quotes from two of his books: “The Poles suffered a lot of disasters, rapes and murders: first by the Nazis, then by Soviet soldiers” (“The Subtle Art of Indifference”) and “The Soviets were worse than the Nazis” (“Everything sucks").
At the same time, Yampolskaya proposed to legally ban such publications, and Putin supported her.