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Cult of Stalin continues to divide and conquer
Published: 18 February, 2010, 21:46
Edited: 16 March, 2010, 02:18
TAGS: Anniversary, Russia, Protest, Human rights, Holiday, Stalin, History, Prime Time Russia
Moscow City Hall has approved hanging posters of Stalin throughout the city in the run up to Victory Day, but tempers are running high.
For years, Moscow authorities have received hundreds of requests from communists, veterans’ organizations and pensioners’ groups to use the image of Joseph Stalin in the celebrations for Victory Day.
This year they got their wish – the billboards will be put up around the city. There are reports that one of the posters is already up in the southwest of Moscow, a caller told the Echo of Moscow radio station.
At the same time, the city of Volgograd in southern Russia is celebrating the 67th anniversary of the victory in the battle of Stalingrad by producing a limited collection of boxes of carbonated water bearing the image of Joseph Stalin. There is considerable controversy on whether this image should be used.
This is not the first time that Stalin has reigned from the grave. In the end of 2009, in the city of Voronezh in southwestern Russia, there were 7 large billboards placed around the city commemorating the 113th anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s birth. It was not even the first incident in the city. In the summer of 2009, 10 billboards were paid for by the Communist party of Voronezh to commemorate the day when Russia entered World War II. They were eventually taken down three days later after a large controversy.
The move of Moscow City Hall has provoked a whole range of different reactions.
President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the billboards do not automatically imply a veneration of Joseph Stalin.
Predictably, the Communists have declared the City Hall decision as a very brave one.
Human rights activists say they will protest this decision, and that everyone who supports it is in favor of a return to those dark days of Stalinist oppression.
Surprisingly enough, Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, said that these billboards around the city could result in widespread dismay. Instead of putting up these billboards, Gorbachev added, more should be written in the history books on Stalin’s role in World War II.
Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the State Duma, was also against the decision, saying that the victory was not Stalin’s merit, but that of Soviet people.
Vyacheslav Tetekin, a secretary for the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, told RT why Stalin’s images are being put up around the city on Victory Day.
“Stalin is being perceived by the nation as the military and political leader who took the nation to the victory. The country needed industrialization. Without it, there would be no victory.”
General Zhukov, who is often viewed as a true hero, Tetekin said, was only “in charge of military operations while Stalin was running the whole economy, the back of the fighting force.”
“If it has not been for the war, Stalin would be a political leader of a different kind. His actions were driven by particular historic circumstances,” Tetekin added.
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Wynn, Before redemption, you must hold the truth fiirmly in your hands, for redemption against a lie is but a bigger sin. You will find little truth in those that seek redemption with regard to Stalin, for the historical malice is held firmly in their grip. Because they ignore the truth, both microscopically and macroscopically. Instead you will just find the embittered rich, within the confines of their new homes. Should the people help these idle rich, live out yet another lie at their expense, should the views of ordinary people be overidden to give effect to a contempory lie. No sometimes the healing of yourself, is in the medicine you prescribe for others, who seek to interchange the poor and the rich in relative fashion to fulfill their own agendas. The poor man is easy to champion, and easy to forget about, when your use for him expires. Should I now oppress the poor who hold the banners, is that the freedom that I can give them. Or do I talk and show, and let truth visit upon them, or are their poor minds not worthy of such feedom. Be careful which pawns you try to use, because at the end of the day, everyone sees they are but pawns in anybodies hands. The clock still runs! dahszhil, Of course the Soviet people won the great victory, that is the truth, they won it with their fantastic efforts, and despite their great suffering. But also in truth Stalin was their leader. Everyone is entitled to their view, but no one is entitled to push their view or subvert other peoples views within the legal playing field. In Russia we need debate, what we don't need is oppression of views with regard to Stalin, for to do that would re-create the very Stalinism, we do not want back. You cannot kill the dog to rid it of flees, because while you have an effective cure, you have no dog.
What I find scary about this is not the fact per se that the face of one of history's great mass murderers, and a man who actually nearly led his country to destruction, should appear at such times. It's the fact that it's actually been re-instated. What sort of message does that send to Russia's young people and to her neighbours? If it isn't a signal, or betrayal, of the fact that the country yearns for its brutal imperial past, then it's nonetheless a damn fine impersonation of such a signal!