Stalin’s Popularity Among Russians a Form of Protest Against Current Regime, Svanidze Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 13 – The Kremlin isn’t promoting Stalinism, Nikolay Svanidze says; instead, it is rising from below, largely because “the more complicated our life becomes, the more popular Stalin will be” and conversely, the better our lives, the less popular the Soviet dictator will remain.

            The prominent Moscow television journalist and professor of the Russian State Humanities University says that in fact, “the cult of Stalin in society has a protest meaning – against what is taking place.” It is a the population’s way of “giving the finger” to the powers that be (ru.delfi.lt/news/live/nikolaj-svanidze-segodnya-rossiya-avtoritarnaya-strana-v-etom-net-nikakih-somnenij.d?id=79262599).

            It is important to distinguish what the powers that be promote and what the people believe, the historian continues.  World War II is something where the two diverge. For the authorities, the war is all about victory with a capital “V” but for many in the population, it was and remains a horrific tragedy the country hasn’t yet fully recovered from.

            If one has to draw historical parallels, Svanidze says, Russia today is most like the last years of the reign of Nicholas I just before the Crimean War.  It seemed then that everything was under control and that there were no fundamental problems; but then came the war and the tsar’s death. His son, Aleksandr II, had to begin reforms immediately.

            The attitude of Moscow today toward the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact resembles Count Benckendorff’s about Russia. In the late 1980s, many Russians recognized that the accord was a crime; but today, they share Benckendorff’s view that “the past of Russia is remarkable, the present more than impressive, and the future will exceed all imagining.”

            Russia and the West are moving apart, Svanidze says, and there is a genuine risk of a major war.  One can only hope that it will not happen.  And Russia is increasingly isolated. But “an iron curtain in the old understanding of Winston Churchill is impossible because now there are significantly more close international ties than there were after World War II.”

            It is thus unlikely that a new iron curtain will be unfurled, the historian says; but if it is, it will be “a very transparent” one – and that can provide the basis for hope that the current situation won’t last.