The Soviet blocking detachments were not as brutal as they are made to be in popular media. Rank and file soldiers were not shot themselves, it is the commanding officer of the retreating units who was punished instead. Massacring entire retreating units only occur rarely, if ever. I believe one such incident that happened during the Battle of Stalingrad was noted but exaggerated for propaganda effect.

I would not be surprised there is some new form of revisionism going on.

The term revisionism geta a bad rap for understandable reasons, but revising history is standard procedure in academia provided there is a strong evidence that changes previous beliefs. I think we should revise the term revisionism to remove the negative connotation, and instead refer to bad faith revisionism as distortionism.