The early 1990s saw the most radical attempt of Destalinization of Russian society.
From print media, testimonies of
survivors of Stalin's repression, memories of contemporaries,
translations of books by foreign historians from
new archival sources and formerly banned fiction,
the Russians found out
more and more and more horrifying details of the recent past of their country.
Even those who had lived through the Stalin era had not had
the full picture and had not known the full scale and details of the repression.
The younger generation with the exception of those who
had access to banned literature and cared to read it,
knew nothing or perhaps a little of what they heard or read in the Gorbachev era.
The official line of the Russian government in the 1990s was that,
the country had to rid itself of the remnants of Stalinism.
If it were to move forward,
it had to get rid of
the command administrative system or the state monopoly in all sectors of the economy.
It had to introduce democratic norms, independent media,
independent institutions as well as checks and balances in the government system.
Exposing Stalinism was seen as
an important element in winning the support of the population.
The government and local officials initiated or allowed the buildings of
memorials to victims of political repression on the sites of executions or camps.
Here is one of them.
Well, they were many and I showed some earlier.
This is a memorial to victims of political repression in Barnaul.
Schools and university textbooks gave
new information on the great terror and new interpretation of the Stalin era as a whole.
But even then, there were many for whom the support
of Stalinism remained the core of their beliefs and principles.
At that time, these were usually all the communists who
felt that the rewriting of Soviet history robbed them of their past.
They thought that it rendered their sacrifices senseless and their lives purposeless.
Stalin's approval ratings at that time stood at about 12 percent.
In the 2000, the situation gradually changed.
Stalin's approval ratings grew from year to year.
According to polls in 2016,
Stalin's policy was approved by more than half of the Russian population.
32 percent considered him a dictator a 20 percent drop from 2015,
when 52 percent called him a dictator.
One should remember however,
that in today's Russia calling Stalin a dictator does not necessarily mean disapproval.
Many admire him exactly because he was a dictator.
They think that this is what Russia needed.
It needed a dictator then and it needs a dictator now.
Today communists constitute only a small minority among Stalin's admirers.
They are now joined by various Russian nationalist groups, government officials,
members of the United Russia,
Russia's ruling party, and even by the Russian Orthodox Church.
There have been initiatives to deify Stalin.
So far the Russian Orthodox Church did not support them,
but Zuda icons depicting Stalin as a saint appear regardless.
New memorials to Stalin spring up all over the country.
These are two of such memorials in Surgut and Novosibirsk.
Russia's media and internet are full of apologetic stories about Stalin.
Bookshops displayed hundreds and hundreds of books by Stalin's apologists.
Many of these books distort or
fake documents or invent facts to contribute to the Stalin mythology.
Some views are dated studies by
Western left wing historians who thought a long time ago that the number
of victims were insignificant or who
attempted to prove that the initiative of the purges came from below.
The archival revolution debunk these myths but
they are still alive in Stalin's hagiography in Russia today.
Some of Stalin's apologists deny neither the number of
victims of the regime nor the suffering of the rest of the population,
but they believe that everything Stalin
did was necessary for the survival of the country.
Some blame Hitler's invasion of the USSR on a conspiracy by Churchill and Roosevelt.
Others attempt to prove that the conspiracies invented by the NKVD were real.
This is one such case.
The poster says, would anyone
admit that his granddad was repressed for thieving, banditry and violence?
This means that well,
the author thinks that Stalin's repression were against real criminals.
The reasons for this revival of Stalin's cult are
many and they have very little to do with Stalinism itself.
In the 1990s after the collapse of
the USSR and with the collapse of the Soviet economy,
Russia went through a period of humiliating impotence.
Proponents of the democratization campaign assured
Russian citizens that the new order would bring them freedom, democracy and prosperity.
But freedom turned into lawlessness,
democracy into fight between corrupt gangs and prosperity never arrived.
On top of this,
the West while embracing
the new East European democracies treated Russia as a defeated enemy.
Indignation and longing for the times of glory when everybody was afraid of us,
as many say, were predictable results.
People were tired of negativity and
wanted good news about their country's past and present.
The upsurge of nationalism came naturally.
Democracy became a swear word,
liberalism a synonym of treason and the West, the worst enemy.
Stalin as a symbol for this revivalist movement filled the bill exactly.
He was a state maker not a state breaker like Lenin for example.
He was associated with the glory of
victory and he has disposed of the enemies of the state.
This is today's poster 2015 not 1945.
It is always remembered that Stalin revived
the institutional basis of the Russian Orthodox Church,
but people forget that he was one of
those who ruined the Russian Orthodox Church in the first place.
This poster says he did not steal and did not allow others to steal,
he built the country rather than squandering it.
He sent his sons to fight for the motherland and not to Britain.
This is an anti-corruption poster.
What it means is that,
today corruption is the order of the day,
today the leadership is corrupt.
Stalin, people think was not.
The reference to Britain is interesting because many members of
today's elite do send their children to Britain either to study or to live,
or to other European countries but Britain is preferable destination.
This is another anti-corruption poster.
To fight corruption, it says,
Comrade Stalin would have allocated four cemeteries,
not 89 million roubles.
Meaning to fight corruption you have to kill.
Stalin, it is, fought against the Western imperialism and often won.
As for his dictatorship,
in the 1930s and in the 2000s,
a stronghand not democracy was needed,
the majority of the Russians felt.
It was needed to preserve Russia's identity.
Liberalism is associated with the West and it is perceived as something totally
alien to the existential essence of the Russians and hostile to the Russian identity.
Liberals and any other oppositionists are labeled as traitors and Nazis.
The call to use Stalin's methods against them is getting louder.
This is a depiction of journalists over
liberal independent TV channel presented as Nazis.
Irina FilatovaProfessor
