Expected it: Russian Communists call for a Ban on HBO's 'Chernobyl'

Currently rated the highest on ImDb and continuing to be the talk-of-the-town, HBO's miniseries Chernobyl continues to attract headlines with every passing day.

According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter,  A Russian Marxist-Leninist organization, the Communists of Russia, claim HBO's Chernobyl series "demonizes the image of the Soviet government and Soviet people" and should be banned.

The party, which had appealed to Russian state broadcasting regulator, Roskomnadzor, is also calling for libel cases to be brought against the writer and director of the show.

"The real tragedy is the 'Chernobyl' series is ideological manipulation by HBO," the party — a splinter group formed by an extremist fringe of Russia's traditional Communist Party — says. "The television series about the dramatic events of April 1986 is an ideological tool designed to defame and demonizes the image of the Soviet government and Soviet people."

The party, which does not seem to recognize that the Soviet Union has not existed for nearly 30 years and the concept of the Soviet people is one most Russians today only read of in history books, concedes that the hit TV series is largely factual, but claims "the motivation, the actions of the heroes, the order of relationships in institutions and collectives, the moral climate in Soviet society, are an absolute lie."

HBO's five-part series starring Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgard and Emily Watson has gripped Russian viewers — and even prompted one domestic TV channel to launch plans to make a more "patriotic" version for local viewers.

It does seem that this appeal will fall on deaf ears as Vladimir Medinsky, Russia's conservative culture minister who is usually no friend of the west, has praised it.

"The film was made masterfully… with the greatest of respect for ordinary people," Medinsky told Russian media.

"My father, who was a liquidator [one of the Russian volunteers engaged in fighting the fire following the explosion] practically from the first day, said that, yes, in general it was just like in the film."

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