Why Is Stalin Back In The Moscow Metro?

Stalin's reputation in Russia continues to recover. According to a poll from 2015, 45% of the Russian population thought the deaths caused by Stalin's actions were justified (up from 25% in 2012). By 2023, 63% of Russians had an overall positive view of his leadership.

This reflects the view promoted in schools and amplified by the Russian media, where criticism of Stalin is rare. Even the 2017 British comedy, The Death of Stalin , was banned in Russia for fear of popping the bubble of public approval.

The purpose of rehabilitating Stalin is about boosting support for Putin's regime, training Russians' conformity reflex and instilling pride in their history. But it also has external ramifications.

With the partial exception of Georgia, his birthplace, Stalin is widely reviled by Russia's neighboring countries, which were often the victims of Stalin's repressive policies. This is especially true of Ukraine. A famine known to Ukrainians as the Holodomor was deliberately imposed there between 1932 and 1933 as part of collectivization and killed as many as 3.8 million people.

As a result, his death unleashed de-Stalinization accompanied by the destruction of his statues all over eastern Europe. This began during the 1956 Budapest uprising and was followed by later such reactions in Prague and elsewhere.

After the uprisings were put down, Stalin's place was typically taken by the less controversial Vladimir Lenin, the revolutionary leader who founded the Soviet Union.

But since the 2014 Maidan revolution in Ukraine, which culminated in the ousting of pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, Ukrainians have also been pulling down statues of Lenin. Other Soviet-era symbols have also been torn down in a wave of demonstrations known as Leninopad or Leninfall.

This is what has informed the latest intensification of Stalin-washing. The Ukrainian refutation of the symbolic heritage of the Soviet Union seems to have supercharged the Russian embrace of it, Stalin included.

Russia has restored statues of Lenin in the Ukrainian territories it occupies. And it has now also started erecting statues of Stalin, notably in the southeastern city of Melitopol, where a statue was unveiled in May to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory in the second world war.

This is against the law in Ukraine, where there is a ban on pro-Communist (and pro-totalitarian) symbolism. Russian forces have meanwhile been destroying memorials to the Holodomor in a battle over the meaning of the Soviet legacy.

The re-elevation of Stalin promotes a narrow interpretation of his rule, stressing Russia's military strength. Modern statues typically portray Stalin in a military uniform and evoke a sense of him as a victorious wartime leader.

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In fact, some of the appeal of the symbol of Stalin lies in welfare provisions of his leadership where, despite imposing an often cruelly authoritarian system , education and healthcare were free for all. The same can be said for his use of fear as a work incentive. Russians sometimes still denounce complacent or inept officials with the imprecation:“If only Stalin was here to sort you out” (Stalina na vas net in Russian).

Nevertheless, it is the imperial version of Stalin that dominates, vindicating Russia's refusal to reckon with its colonial past as the center of the Soviet Union. Stalin's record is sometimes defended within Russia on the basis that Winston Churchill, for instance, remains a British national hero despite a bloody past (such as his role in the Bengal famine of 1943).

While there is an element of truth in this, the difference is that Churchill's shortcomings and complicity in the death toll attributable to the British empire are publicly discussed. Such criticism of Stalin is not permitted in Russia. Even the new statue in Moscow was erected under cover of the night, evading public scrutiny and debate.

Jeremy Hicks is a professor of post-Soviet cultural history and film at Queen Mary University of London .

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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