From the MT:
"Stalin Lives On, 60 Years After Death"
Yury Fidelgoltz, a Stalin-era gulag survivor, has an answer
ready when he hears people pine for the "good old days" under Uncle
Joe. "My answer is clear. If Stalin came to power now, you
wouldn't talk like that because he'd snap your necks!" Fidelgoltz said,
leaning forward in his chair, his blue eyes narrowing during a recent
conversation in his apartment in Moscow. Fidelgoltz, 85, was a 20-year-old aspiring actor when he was
sentenced to a decade of hard labor for anti-Soviet scribblings in his private
diary. He served six years, from 1948 to 1954, before his release,
the result of a liberalization policy in the wake of Soviet dictator Josef
Stalin's death. Fidelgoltz is one of thousands of survivors who have lived
to see the 60th anniversary of Stalin's death on Tuesday, a reminder of the
human cost of Stalin's 30-year rule. Other reminders of Stalin's regime are all around us — from
the Moscow metro that millions of Muscovites ride to work, to the country's UN
Security Council seat and nuclear arsenal. Some say Stalin even lives in the language and mentality of
the country's officials, whom critics accuse of a Stalin-like tendency to use
violence to solve problems. "He's very much alive," said human rights leader
and former Soviet dissident Lyudmila Alexeyeva. Experts and human rights leaders say Stalin, still a
controversial figure, is a bellwether for the nation's anxiety about the
present, and a potent symbol that the government exploits and abuses at its own
risk. Stalin ruled Russia from 1922 to 1953, during which time he
oversaw the country's rapid industrialization, the collectivization of
agriculture, and the Allied victory in World War II, as well as a system of
political repression that saw millions imprisoned and killed. He left his mark on the map of Russia, adding the Kuril
Islands — seized from Japan just before the war's end — and the Siberian
republic of Tuva, while also creating the Leningrad region and the Jewish
autonomous region. Also, under Stalin, the Soviet Union became a nuclear power
and gained permanent membership on the UN Security Council, where Russia has
made headlines in recent months by blocking Western-backed proposals to
pressure Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Closer to home, Stalin ordered the construction of Moscow's
metro system, the iconic Seven Sisters skyscrapers, and what is now the
All-Russia Exhibition Center. "It's the architecture of a totalitarian utopia,"
with monumental scale, expensive decor and elements of historical styles from
classicism to gothic, said Natalya Samover, head of Arkhnadzor, a group that
promotes architectural preservation. But experts agreed that Stalin's most important legacy is
the debate he inspires between supporters, who tend to see him as a strong,
incorruptible leader, and detractors, who see him as bloody tyrant. The ambivalence that Russians feel toward Stalin is apparent
in a recent public opinion poll by the independent Levada Center. Forty-nine percent of respondents said the dictator played a
positive role in Russian history, while 55 percent associated his death on
March 5, 1953, with the end of terror and repression and the liberation of
millions of innocent people from imprisonment. By comparison, only 18 percent said his death meant the loss
of a great leader and teacher. Lev Gudkov, the Levada Center's direct, said that when it
came to Stalin, Russians suffered from a kind of schizophrenia that is
increasingly turning into indifference as the years pass. Other indicators suggest that his popularity has increased
in recent years. The percentage of respondents who call him the most
outstanding historical figure jumped from 12 to 36 percent between 1989 and
2008, according to Levada polls, a fact that Gudkov partly blames on Putin-era
propaganda. Beginning in 2000, Putin's government has "very quietly
and equivocally" improved the image of Stalin and the Soviet era, tying
Stalin to the Allied victory in World War II and praising the modernization
that took place on his watch, Gudkov said. Portraits of Stalin on city buses commemorating Victory Day
in St. Petersburg have appeared, as well as a quote praising Stalin inside the
Kurskaya metro station that reads, "Stalin reared us on loyalty to the
people. He inspired us to labor and heroism." Senior government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister
Dmitry Rogozin, have expressed support for going back to Volgograd's World War
II-era name, Stalingrad. The city provoked a nationwide discussion when it
approved a measure to revert back to its old name on six war-related holidays. There was also the appearance of a school history textbook
in 2008 that praised Stalin as an "effective manager" whose campaign
of terror was a rational step toward modernization. The strategy has gone hand-in-hand with Putin's own brand of
authoritarianism, which has included its own modernization and anti-corruption
campaigns, as well as a call for stability, Gudkov said. Alexeyeva, the rights leader, put it more bluntly. "The
regime wants to be a dictatorship like Stalin's, perhaps without the bloodshed,
but they want everyone to fear and praise them and keep their mouths
shut," she said. But was Stalin's era the utopia of order, quality services
and clean streets that many supporters say it was? Oleg Khlevnyuk, a Stalin
expert and senior researcher at the Russian National Archives, said no — these
ideas have little to no foundation in reality. The crime rate was very high under Stalin, bureaucrats did
steal, and average people lived exclusively poorly and often starved, he said.
As for the Soviet Union's great-power status, "Maybe they feared us, but I
can't understand what joy that brought to regular people," he said. What these myths are really about are anxieties regarding
contemporary Russia. Concerns about corruption, crime, Russia's status and the
standard of living give birth to an imagined past, he said. "There are political forces that are ready to play this
Stalin card, but nothing would work for them if there weren't this public
yearning. It's politically dangerous for the government, but they have to say
something positive because there are a lot of people who like Stalin," he
said. Opposition activists have accused the current government of
being Stalinist. References to "1937" — the height of the Great
Purge, which saw 725,000 executions over two years — have been frequent since
the Kremlin began ramping up restrictions on critics and nonconformists last
year. In public remarks, Putin has attempted to toe the line
between praising Stalin's achievements and condemning his abuses. During his annual call-in television show in 2009, Putin
said that the Soviet Union had industrialized under Stalin and that nobody
could "throw stones" at those who led the Soviet Army to Berlin in
World War II because defeat would have been "catastrophic." But, he said, these achievements were reached at an
"unacceptable" cost: Millions suffered from repressions, and crimes
were widely committed against the Russian people. On another occasion, he condemned the idea that Russia
should return to, or needs, a totalitarian regime, which he said would
"kill peoples' freedom and creativity," thereby derailing the
economy, society and political sphere. Nonetheless, Stalinist sayings have a way of popping out of
officials' mouths, giving some the impression that the great dictator might
have friends in high places."One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a
statistic," is an oft-quoted saying, attributed to Stalin, as is,
"It's not important how they voted, it's important how they counted the
votes," said Sergei Lukashevsky, director of the Sakharov Center. Of equal concern is sympathy for Stalin within the security
services. Andrei Soldatov, an intelligence analyst at Agentura.ru,
said Stalin's influence lives on in the structure of the Federal Security
Service, a successor agency to the KGB, as well as the mentality of many who
serve in it. Russian counter-intelligence has a central office, as well
as offices in almost every city, a sprawling network that allowed it, during
the Stalinist era, to process large numbers of prisoners for repressions, he
said. "As a result, it's much bigger than MI-5, and this
structure was in no way reformed and exists to this day," Soldatov said. Stalin promoted a siege mentality that remains to this day,
an idea that Russia is surrounded by enemies bent on weakening and destroying
it, a mentality that's still convincing for many, Soldatov said.
^ It is interesting that this if even being debated 60 years after Stalin died especially since the Soviets in the early 1960s spoke out against everything Stalin had done (of course those who spoke out also survived the purges because they helped Stalin.) If the Soviets themselves say he was not a great man and even removed his body from Lenin's Tomb then it should be clear to Russians today that he was a murderous dictator that can only be likened to Hitler. ^
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