Communists of Russia, a Marxist-Leninist communist party, has called for the country to ban hit HBO miniseries Chernobyl.

The party, not to be confused with the larger Communist Party of the Russian Federation, is appealing to the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) to block the series describing it as “filthy”.

Furthermore, the head of the executive committee of the central committee of the party, Sergei Malinkovich, has called for a criminal case to be opened against the show calling for a libel lawsuit against the writer, director and producers.

“Firstly, Roskomnadzor should block access to the filthy series on all trackers, on all resources,” Malinkovich said. “Secondly, criminal cases should be opened against the director, screenwriter and executive producer of the series under Article 129 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for public defamation.”

Malinkovich went on to add that in Chernobyl “the real tragedy has become the object of ideological manipulation by the HBO channel.”

“The series about the dramatic events of April 1986… is an ideological tool designed to discredit and demonise the image of both the Soviet government and the Soviet people.”

The leader of the party did reluctantly admit that the chronology of the events of the series “mostly” correspond to reality but insisted that “the motivation, the actions of the heroes themselves, the portrayal of relationships in institutions and collectives, and, finally, the moral climate in Soviet society itself is an example of absolute lies.”

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The five-part historical drama television miniseries created and written by Craig Mazin, has become the highest rated show in history by online database IMDB.

The show, directed by Johan Renck, surpasses the likes of Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Planet Earth IIand the immensely popular Game of Thrones. Chernobyl leads the way with a 9.7-star (out of 10) average rating from about 140,000 users.

The show, which depicts the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 1986 and the unprecedented cleanup efforts that followed, stars the likes of Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Emily Watson, and Paul Ritter.

“Chernobyl dramatises the true story of one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history,” the synopsis reads. “The miniseries focuses on the nuclear plant disaster that occurred in the Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Union) in April 1986, revealing how and why it happened, and telling the stories of those people who helped and died in tackling the disaster, and the Soviet cover up.

“The miniseries is based in large part on the memories of Pripyat locals, as told by Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich in her book, Voices from Chernobyl.”