Paul Goble
Staunton,
March 5 – Vladimir Putin may aspire to be the Stalin of today, but Russians who
display their affection for the Soviet dictator as on today’s anniversary of the dictator's death do so because they understand that in boosting Stalin, they are in
fact protesting against Putin and the current Russian regime, Ekho Moskvy journalist Michael Nacke
says.
Those
who come out to show their support for Stalin in 2019, he says, are showing
their support not for the actual man and his actions but for the myths that have
arisen around him and they are simultaneously protesting against the absence of
those qualities in the current regime (echo.msk.ru/blog/michaelnacke/2382821-echo/).
“We
must understand,” he continues, “that present-day love for Stalin is only a
manifestation of protest against hte current state. Bowing down to him is an
appeal to the myth which includes in itself all that does not exist in
contemporary Russia. It is a protest against corruption, against
ineffectiveness, and against injustice.”
But
Russian citizens are not the only ones who must understand this, Nacke
suggests. Russian leaders including Putin must as well: those who honor Stalin
are not the same as those who support the current regime. Instead, they are
just as much opponents of the Kremlin as its liberal opponents.
Anyone
in the leadership who thinks otherwise is deceiving himself.
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