Putin’s Stalin Cult Shows He Feels Close to His Predecessor, Eidman Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 24 – “Every tyrant seeks a worthy predecessor with whom he feels mentally close,” Igor Eidman says.  Stalin organized a cult of Ivan the Terrible because he felt he shared many things in common with the earlier Russian ruler. Now, Vladimir Putin has revived a cult of Stalin for exactly the same reason.

            What unites these two pairs? the Russian commentator who often writes for Deutsche Welle asks rhetorically. “Certainly above all it is that they are brothers in insanity, in their persecution complexes and in their conspiratorial habits of mind” (facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2173716012691366&id=100001589654713).

                “Like all those who suffer from persecution mania, Stalin dreamed up imaginary enemies and threats and then directed” his police force to go after those he suspected. “If the NKVD leaders couldn’t confirm his fantasies, he has them cruelly punished.” Such maniacs, Eidman says, are also especially angry at those who case doubt on what they only imagine.

                Putin spreads his notions about conspiracies via state television, the commentator continues. “Putin’s bureaucrats just like Stalin’s understand that if they do not indulge the foolish fantasies of their chief, they will not remain in their own positions very long,” although he suggests, in his view, “not so very many of them sincerely believe all this nonsense.”

            And the longer this goes on, the more dangerous the fantasies of the leader become for him, for the country and for the world. It is thus a very bad sign that Putin is now “promising his minions a warm place in paradise in the event of a nuclear war.”