New Russians gripped by Stalin's old spell

Guardian&Mail online ^ | 4/22/05 | Staff

[qam1]

It was the site of one of the most infamous political executions in Stalin's Russia. Stalin ordered 157 political prisoners, including the sister of his enemy Leon Trotsky, taken from their cells on September 11 1941 and shot in the woods outside the town.

But now, as nostalgia for Joseph Stalin swells in Russia and the 60th anniversary of the Soviet victory over the Nazis on May 9 approaches, Oryol has rekindled its affection for a man seen by many as the 20th century's worst mass murderer.

The town council has written to President Vladimir Putin demanding his support for having Stalin's "honour" restored to the history books, his statues re-erected, and his name once more given to streets and squares.

Last week the Communist party leader, Gennady Zyuganov, said Russia "should once again render honour to Stalin for his role in building socialism and saving human civilisation from the Nazi plague".

He suggested a challenge to the Communist party's 1956 resolution condemning the "cult of personality" erected around Stalin.

Statues by the Moscow monumentalist Zurab Tsereteli featuring Stalin beside his wartime counterparts Roosevelt and Churchill are planned for the southern town of Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad, and Mirny in Siberia.

The rehabilitation of Stalin appears to have some popular backing. Last month a national poll by Romir Monitoring showed that 53% of Russians thought that on balance Stalin's rule was "positive".

The nostalgia has spread to a generation too young to have experienced his rule.

"Stalin played an undoubted huge role in our victory and in rebuilding the economy of the USSR after the war", said Vladimir Zagianov, aged 30, a member of Oryol's Communist town council.

"Official figures are that 750 000 died [from political repression] in Stalin's time," he added, significantly reducing the figures offered by many historians.

"This was right and necessary in this period. These were enemies of the people and the state. It was not possible to investigate and try [them] all."

In his office, flanked and echoed by the editor of the local paper and two officials, he said that "human rights workers" funded from abroad wanted to destroy Stalin's legacy.

"They are afraid of his rehabilitation and of Russia being a great country again. The USSR was the strongest, but in 10 years we will be like Sweden."

Vera Dinisenko (52) who works in a cafe, said: "It's been a nightmare since [Stalin]. Now every six months prices go up. My parents say the benefits of Stalin were entirely material. He did not touch our relatives. Many disappeared, but you can't blame Stalin alone."

Oryol is only a few kilometres from the Kursk salient, the site of the biggest and bloodiest tank battle of the second world war.

Stalin's propaganda image as the Soviet Man of Steel was cast in the popular imagination in mammoth battles like this, when the Red Army's tank squadrons suffered horrific losses in charges against superior German armour.

But Oryol remains scarred by darker memories.

The 19th-century prison where Olga Kameneva, Trotsky's sister, was held is still in use. Dmitri Krayukhin, a local human rights worker, waved his arm at the decrepit red brick building behind him, and sighed.

"It can't have been a picnic in there, if you were related to Stalin's worst enemy," he said.

"She had no crime other than being Trotsky's sister."

That September night she and 156 others were driven to the woods, passing along a road then called Stalin Street, and shot for "counter-revolutionary activities".

Today several monuments mark Russian victims of the Nazis in the town centre but the "Victims of Repression of the 30s, 40s and early 50s" -- 50 000 families, according to the secret police archive -- are remembered only by a small monument beside the woods on an outer road.

A fairground occupies the place where one of the town's prison camps stood. -

[qam1]

Not sure if in Russia if they are called "Generation X", If they are embracing Stalin then I hope they don't call themselves that

Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.  

[Andy from Beaverton]

Stalin played an undoubted huge role in our victory and in rebuilding the economy of the USSR after the war",
Stalin played an undoubted huge role in our early defeats and in destroying the economy of the USSR before the war",

[Bigh4u2]

"This was right and necessary in this period. These were enemies of the people and the state. It was not possible to investigate and try [them] all."

Holy Crap!

This person is sick!

[Chgogal]

Here is another article from news.telegraph regarding this topic.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/20/wstal20.xml

I found it in War Blog from FPM.com under the title "STALIN MAKING A COMEBACK, AS A FACADE FOR PUTIN" about a fifth of the way down the scroll bar. Here's the shortcut.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17777

Looks like there is a nationalist front starting to form. Hopefully it will not be a repeat of Germany after WWI.

[Americanexpat]

It's the vodka, it's pickeled their brains.

[GarySpFc]

This person is sick!

Everyday this same article or a slight variation is posted at least twice on FR. While there is an element of truth to the past history contained in the article it contains many errors and distortions.
The statue that was going to be placed in Volgograd includes Churchill and FDR. It was originally going to be erected in the Crimea, but they rejected it. Then the city of Moscow rejected it. Then the sculptor decided to erect it in Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), but the city decided they did not have the necessary funds. :) Less than 5% of the citizens in the Volgograd Region think highly of Stalin, and the rest hate him.
The last I heard the communists represent only about 5% of Russians, are not respected, and generally are those 60 and above. You will find more communists in our American universities than in Russia where the people know better than anyone communism does not work.

[Guard Dog]

53% of Russians thought that on balance Stalin's rule was "positive".

Of course, those 53 percent are descended from people Stalin did not kill. It sickens me to see old communist thugs like Stalin, Castro, et al being in vouge again. Go on any college campus an one idiot or another will be wearing a Che Guravera t-shirt. Either they do not know who he was and what he represented (in which case they are stupid) or worse, they do and like him anyway (in which case they are an enemy of this country).

[NEBUCHADNEZZAR1961]

Remember, we never "decommunized" Russia in the 1990s. Expect more of the same.

[Chgogal]

I respectfully hope history proves you correct.

[GarySpFc]

Remember, we never "decommunized" Russia in the 1990s. Expect more of the same.

Nonsense! So you would impose democracy with a gun? It was never our place to decommunize anyone, much less Russia.

[rdb3]

This is frightening. I would encourage everyone to read The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. It will make your hair stand on end.

[GSlob]

"Remember, we never "decommunized" Russia in the 1990s. Expect more of the same."
You are right: communism is a way of life, not red banners and slogans. Like every other way of life, it is characterized by how people relate to one another in socially important situations. ("If I'm the boss, then you're a POS, and if you're the boss then I'm a POS" - a Russian proverb on this subject. Thus nomenklatura types walk through life like master race, and our own Clintons in this sense are communists, but this is a small deviation from the subject).
In this sense Russia has always been a communist society, does know and cannot be anything else, and if one was somehow to decommunize Russia, it would cease existing.

[GSlob]

"does know and cannot be" should read as "does not know how and cannot be"

[streetpreacher]

PING

[Victoria Delsoul]

Last week the Communist party leader, Gennady Zyuganov, said Russia "should once again render honour to Stalin for his role in building socialism and saving human civilisation from the Nazi plague".

Good Lord! There were 50 million people killed under Stalin as opposed to Hitler's 12- 13 million. They are both horrible, but Stalin is the winner.

[jb6]

Moscow monumentalist Zurab Tsereteli

Is actually Georgian and his home is in Tbilisi, though he makes his God aweful statues for anyone who pays. His "monuments" are all over Tbilisi and all are ugly.

[AlbionGirl]

History hampers the Russians, I think. They've never had a real mercantile class. Not that mercantilism can't be a disadvantage as well, but it usually fosters that broad middle, and that broad middle usually fosters freedom, and as a consequence, relative peace.

Roots of the Russian Revolution are very interesting to me. Prior to 1917, the common Russian man's life was abysmally bleak. Especially in light of the intelligence of the Russian people. They were just so beat down by history, and have never been able to establish themselves by themselves, and that's a problem.

If I could wish any characteristic or quality to bloom in the Russian masses it would be that same quality bred into the bones of the early American settlers and pioneers.

[risk]

Solzhenitsyn worth reading, too.

[weegee]

Unless there was a comparable "Baby Boom" and "Baby Bust" then there is no "Generation X" in Russia.

There "could" be a Generation Reagan, kids who grew up during the end of the Cold War and did not like communism and were fans of Ronald Wilson Reagan.