Popularity of Stalin Growing among Russian Youth Because of His Achievements and Promotion of Social Mobility, Fursov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 2 – Polls showing that Stalin is increasingly popular among young Russians have shocked many, but there are some simple explanations, Andrey Fursov says. And they suggest that the standing of the Soviet dictator is likely to become even higher in the near future.

            There are at least two major reasons for that, the scholar at the Moscow University of the Humanities says. On the one hand, Stalin is seen by the young as behind many great achievements, including the victory in World War II. That makes him especially popular among those who live in an anything but heroic age (centrasia.org/newsA.php?st=1690891500).

            And on the other, Stalin is recalled as the leader behind enormous upward social mobility, again a popular idea at a time when these elevators have largely stopped working, even though Stalin achieved what he did in that area in many cases by executing or imprisoning those up the latter giving those below a chance to rise.

            Russian state media are encouraging the first of these causes, but that may prove counterproductive for the Kremlin given that the Putin regime is hardly a heroic one and given that it seems committed not to upward mobility but rather to the freezing of the current class arrangements into things that recall the official strata of tsarist times.