Posted on 03/30/2023 6:31:12 AM PDT by Cronos
Vladimir Putin once confessed to the American filmmaker Oliver Stone that “Stalin was a product of his time.” The Soviet dictator was, in the eyes of the Russian president, a historical figure victim of “excessive demonization.” Now, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities are pressing to rename the city of Volgograd and call it Stalingrad, as it was known until 1961.. The glories of the past, even those attributed to Stalin, have become a very valuable political asset for Putin as he seeks to justify his actions in Ukraine.
...This renewed exaltation of Stalin is also evidenced by the approval in June 2022 of a law that prohibits drawing parallels between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, and between the actions of their armies during World War II. This includes up to 15 days in prison for “crimes” such as denouncing the territorial conquests that Moscow made in Poland through the secret clauses of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the existence of which was revealed by the government of the late Mikhail Gorbachev.
Putin, whom the editor of Russia Today has alluded to by the title Vozhd, given to Soviet leaders like Lenin and Stalin, once called the Stalin-Hitler pact “immoral” in an open letter to Poland. A decade and a half later, those statements are a crime, because in the new official version of events, the agreement with the Third Reich was just a way to buy time.
Despite this nostalgic fervor, polls conducted by the Kremlin show that the population rejects renaming their city after Stalin.
The Kremlin is trying to link its war against Ukraine with World War II by reiterating that Kyiv is a regime that needs to be “denazified.”
(Excerpt) Read more at english.elpais.com ...
Fun fact: Vladimir Putin’s paternal grandfather Spiridon Putin was a personal chef for Lenin and then for Stalin.
Small world, eh?
Putin supporters will be ecstatic. Much singing of the Soviet anthem will commence
Residents say NO! Pffffft! As if that matters.
How long before the New York Times and other Democrats want to change the name of Washington to Obamagrad?
seems like Putin is downright envious of Stalin’s dictatorial power & control
he’s already got Stalin’s contempt for other people, civil rights, and freedom down pat
Over two years ago, well before the February 2022 all-out Ukraine invasion, the “Lugansk People’s Republic” was making administrators, teachers, hospital personnel, and others join the party. The party was Putin’s United Russia Party. Even then, the fake separatist areas were being gobbled up by Russia without intention to being separate.
In Alchevsk, near Lugansk, the occupiers have brough in laborers from Chukotka which is as far east as one can get in Russia (which includes those Russian islands Sarah Palin and everybody else who goes to those Alaskan islands can see across the waters). The Chukotka area is impoverished, and many residents are desperately poor. But Russia still likes moving populations around, even moving them across nine time zones.
The Democrat Party is holding for Putin on advice line 1984.
This may make The Democrats support Russia again.
Somewhere in a Moscow warehouse, there’s probably half-a-million Soviet flags still in storage and could be released in a matter of an hour or two to the public.
The same can be said of Adolph Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, Idi Amin Dada, Pol Pot, Ruholla Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Kim il Sung, ...
I’d made jokes about Putin doing this and even I thought it would never happen.
This is my shocked face and I don’t shock easy.
Maybe they should rename it back to Tsaritsyn?
Good grief. Why not just name it Hitlerville?
No problemo. Just have a vote and change after it passes.
I like “Vladigrad” myself. Seems to have a nice ring to it.
Or Hilterville.
That’s on my Bucket List of things to visit.
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