Russians embrace their old Uncle Joe
Mark Franchetti, Moscow
March 08, 2005
SMARTLY dressed in suit and tie, the young lawyer cut an incongruous figure as he was borne through the streets of Moscow alongside crowds of impoverished pensioners in a red sea of hammer-and-sickle flags.
Although several decades younger than most of those around him, Yuri Vassilyev, 33, was happy to admit to their common cause: a fondness for Joseph Stalin, the dictator whose purges are blamed by Western historians for the deaths of up to 20 million Soviet citizens.
"Look, everyone makes mistakes," Mr Vassilyev said. "Stalin wasn't a saint, but he was a great man who built up a strong state.
"After years of lies about him, the truth is coming out. We owe a lot to him. He turned the Soviet Union into a superpower that was feared and respected. A man like Stalin is what Russia needs now."
Increasing numbers of Mr Vassilyev's countrymen are taking a similarly sepia-tinged view of the dictator in the run-up to May's 60th anniversary of his finest moment, the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Once dismissed as the rabid opinions of a few eccentrics and elderly nostalgics, statements glorifying Stalin can now be heard among those born long after his death in 1953.
At least three Russian cities have announced plans to erect monuments marking his war record – almost half a century since they were torn down in a program of de-Stalinisation initiated by his successor, Nikita Khrushchev.
A recent poll found that 50per cent of Russians consider Stalin a "wise leader", while one in four say they would vote for him if he were standing for office today.
Recently, the grandson of an officer of Stalin's dreaded NKVD secret police opened the Shield and the Sword, a KGB-themed restaurant.
Memorabilia on display includes a letter signed by Stalin, a portrait of his infamous henchman Lavrenty Beria and a bust of NKVD founder Felix Dzerzhinsky. The waitresses wear the green skirts and white blouses with shoulder epaulettes of the Soviet bureaucracy.
A plethora of books seeking to burnish Stalin's image have been published in recent months. One, Builder of a Superpower, by communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, focuses on Stalin's role in defeating Hitler, while brushing aside or minimising his crimes.
Another, Generalissimus, claims fewer than 2.5 million were killed during the more than two decades of Stalin's rule, and only on the orders of his political rivals.
The tone was set at a ceremony in December marking the 125th anniversary of Stalin's birth. Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of parliament and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, admitted "the deaths Stalin had ordered did not make him look good" but praised him "as a leader who had done much for his nation".
Mikhail Gorbachev, who as Soviet leader from 1985-91 did much to demolish Stalin's legacy, declared himself "shocked" by such an assessment.
But such views are finding an appreciative audience among poverty-stricken Russians disillusioned by market reforms and Western values.
Seasoned Russia-watchers are worried by the latest bout of revisionism. British historian Norman Davies, author of Europe: A History, said people were falling into a propaganda trap of which Stalin would have been proud.
"The war is the only good thing the Russians have to report after 75 years of communism," he said. "It's the only source of self-respect left. I don't think you can expect the Russians to be objective about their history. It's a weapon. It's about not feeling humiliated about the collapse of communism."
Unlike in Germany, where the struggle to come to terms with Hitler's legacy still haunts public debate, in Russia there has never been a clean break with the evils of the past.
Yet, while Mr Vassilyev and the new generation of Stalin lovers fall for the Shield and the Sword nostalgia, there are plenty of Russians for whom the wounds of 50years ago have scarcely healed.
For Sergei Kovalev, a dissident who spent 10 years in Soviet gulags, Stalin was simply a criminal. "To hear that people are seriously thinking of erecting statues to Stalin is shocking and appalling," he said.
"As for his contribution during the war, people forget that he was so cruel that he branded Soviet soldiers who survived Nazi concentration camps as traitors, and sent them to their death in the gulags."
The Sunday Times
THE WORLD http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12474982^2703,00.html
March 08, 2005
SMARTLY dressed in suit and tie, the young lawyer cut an incongruous figure as he was borne through the streets of Moscow alongside crowds of impoverished pensioners in a red sea of hammer-and-sickle flags.
Although several decades younger than most of those around him, Yuri Vassilyev, 33, was happy to admit to their common cause: a fondness for Joseph Stalin, the dictator whose purges are blamed by Western historians for the deaths of up to 20 million Soviet citizens.
"Look, everyone makes mistakes," Mr Vassilyev said. "Stalin wasn't a saint, but he was a great man who built up a strong state.
"After years of lies about him, the truth is coming out. We owe a lot to him. He turned the Soviet Union into a superpower that was feared and respected. A man like Stalin is what Russia needs now."
Increasing numbers of Mr Vassilyev's countrymen are taking a similarly sepia-tinged view of the dictator in the run-up to May's 60th anniversary of his finest moment, the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Once dismissed as the rabid opinions of a few eccentrics and elderly nostalgics, statements glorifying Stalin can now be heard among those born long after his death in 1953.
At least three Russian cities have announced plans to erect monuments marking his war record – almost half a century since they were torn down in a program of de-Stalinisation initiated by his successor, Nikita Khrushchev.
A recent poll found that 50per cent of Russians consider Stalin a "wise leader", while one in four say they would vote for him if he were standing for office today.
Recently, the grandson of an officer of Stalin's dreaded NKVD secret police opened the Shield and the Sword, a KGB-themed restaurant.
Memorabilia on display includes a letter signed by Stalin, a portrait of his infamous henchman Lavrenty Beria and a bust of NKVD founder Felix Dzerzhinsky. The waitresses wear the green skirts and white blouses with shoulder epaulettes of the Soviet bureaucracy.
A plethora of books seeking to burnish Stalin's image have been published in recent months. One, Builder of a Superpower, by communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, focuses on Stalin's role in defeating Hitler, while brushing aside or minimising his crimes.
Another, Generalissimus, claims fewer than 2.5 million were killed during the more than two decades of Stalin's rule, and only on the orders of his political rivals.
The tone was set at a ceremony in December marking the 125th anniversary of Stalin's birth. Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of parliament and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, admitted "the deaths Stalin had ordered did not make him look good" but praised him "as a leader who had done much for his nation".
Mikhail Gorbachev, who as Soviet leader from 1985-91 did much to demolish Stalin's legacy, declared himself "shocked" by such an assessment.
But such views are finding an appreciative audience among poverty-stricken Russians disillusioned by market reforms and Western values.
Seasoned Russia-watchers are worried by the latest bout of revisionism. British historian Norman Davies, author of Europe: A History, said people were falling into a propaganda trap of which Stalin would have been proud.
"The war is the only good thing the Russians have to report after 75 years of communism," he said. "It's the only source of self-respect left. I don't think you can expect the Russians to be objective about their history. It's a weapon. It's about not feeling humiliated about the collapse of communism."
Unlike in Germany, where the struggle to come to terms with Hitler's legacy still haunts public debate, in Russia there has never been a clean break with the evils of the past.
Yet, while Mr Vassilyev and the new generation of Stalin lovers fall for the Shield and the Sword nostalgia, there are plenty of Russians for whom the wounds of 50years ago have scarcely healed.
For Sergei Kovalev, a dissident who spent 10 years in Soviet gulags, Stalin was simply a criminal. "To hear that people are seriously thinking of erecting statues to Stalin is shocking and appalling," he said.
"As for his contribution during the war, people forget that he was so cruel that he branded Soviet soldiers who survived Nazi concentration camps as traitors, and sent them to their death in the gulags."
The Sunday Times
THE WORLD http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12474982^2703,00.html
Comments