Apparently unsatisfied with how startled the world was with this Czar-like power grab, Russian President Vladimir Putin's government has approved the erection of a new statue of Josef Stalin.
Moscow plans to erect a new statue of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, returning his once-ubiquitous image to its streets after an absence of four decades, a top city official said Wednesday.
Since President Vladimir Putin was elected in 2000, a number of Soviet symbols — including the national anthem and an army flag — have been restored to use, reflecting widespread nostalgia for Russia's communist years.
But rehabilitation of Stalin, who was denounced after his death in 1953 by the Soviet leadership for encouraging a cult of personality and killing millions of real and imagined opponents, has previously been out of bounds. Statues of Stalin were removed from Moscow's public spaces in the 1960s.
"A monument will be erected to those who took part in (leading the war against Adolf Hitler), including Stalin," Oleg Tolkachev, Moscow's senator in the upper house of parliament, told Ekho Moskvy radio.
Eugene Volokh asks whether this means we'll soon see statues of Hitler in Berlin.
This suggests another interesting question, as well. If a leader serves his/her nation well, vanquishing a dangerous threat, securing its sovereignty, and other such stuff of legends, but then, securing power, spirals downward into a black pit of crime, corruption and infamy, what is history to do with them?
I mean, is there a period of political purgatory then followed by a balanced assessment, possibly even forgiveness?
As a child, I recalled being totally shocked when Spock argued on Star Trek that Hitler had done some remarkable things regarding Germany's economy. How could anyone say anything even remotely positive about that monster? Wasn't everything he did forever overshadowed by the horrors he inflicted? Perhaps it depends on your distance from the horrors. Alexander the Great (yes, you'll keep hearing about him until I exhaust everything ever written on the man) committed some atrocious crimes in his day, but history currently seems more impressed with his accomplishments than horrified by his excesses.
Still, Stalin's crimes seem too recent to me. I can understand where some of the imagery of Soviet Russia can be employed to appease the masses, but surely Putin should stop short of resurrecting the memory of a mass murderer while his victims' families can still remember their screams.
I mean, is there a period of political purgatory then followed by a balanced assessment, possibly even forgiveness?
There may be, in the long run. However, we certainly haven't reached that point with Stalin yet.
I think the main question to ask with something like this is not "did this person do anything worthwhile", or even "did the good things outweigh the bad", but rather "what message will be sent by publicly honoring this person?" In this particular case, I don't know how the average Russian will react, but the message that the rest of the world is likely to understand from it is that Putin would like to recreate a Soviet-style totalitarian state.
Posted by: kenB | January 19, 2005 at 04:53 PM
Why is this surprising? Would anyone really have expected anything different if a former Gestapo man had been elected president of a post-war Germany? Putin is an ex-KGB man, that's what he wanted to be right from his teenage years, and it's strange to expect anything better from a man who thinks of Yuri Andropov and Felix Dzherzinsky as heroes.
Posted by: Abiola Lapite | January 19, 2005 at 04:57 PM
Yeah, but he's our ex-KGB man. I think.
Posted by: praktike | January 19, 2005 at 05:01 PM
Agreed. (And, open tag fixed, I hope.)
What will be interesting is to see how Putin justifies honoring Stalin.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | January 19, 2005 at 05:03 PM
thanks for the html repair Jes!
Posted by: Edward | January 19, 2005 at 05:05 PM
I blame myself.
Posted by: praktike | January 19, 2005 at 05:07 PM
You probably didn't mean to suggest this, Edward, but it's not as though Stalin started with the good stuff and only later went bad. He was a monster from the get-go.
Posted by: hilzoy | January 19, 2005 at 05:20 PM
Still, Stalin's crimes seem too recent to me.
The hell with that. His crimes are too monstrous to me.
Posted by: Anarch | January 19, 2005 at 06:05 PM
I mean, is there a period of political purgatory then followed by a balanced assessment, possibly even forgiveness?
Sure, I mean recently, I've read some interesting stuff about Attila the Hun. But I guess that's not the time scale you are talking about.
I was looking for some pithy point to make about Stalin being a seminary student and found this (link) (This sounds familiar, but it's been a long time since I read anything about the life of Stalin)
As a student, Soso was thought of as a quick learner who was always prepared for lessons. He was very self-confident with a desire to excel at everything. Even though he was a good student, he refused to believe he was wrong about anything, which often resulted in fights with teachers. Because of Russification, the Georgian language was being phased out in schools and was only taught as a foreign language. Soso had become vengeful towards the Russian teachers at the school, and had participated in several uprisings against them. A vengeful attitude towards authority figures in general and everyone who was more powerful than himself had developed during these school years.
"Even though he was a good student, he refused to believe he was wrong about anything, which often resulted in fights with teachers". Makes me really wonder about the blogosphere...
Posted by: liberal japonicus | January 19, 2005 at 06:11 PM
Two years ago while I was taking a Russian history class as part of my master's degree I was stunned to learn that many Russians remember Stalin with fondness and nostalgia. My professor, who had many friends in Russian and took Americans there for extended visits every year, told us that there were Russians who rationalized or minimized all of Stalin's abuses because they thought he made their country strong and united, a force to be reckoned with, which is pretty much the opposite of how Russia is now. Ther seems to be something in human nature that responds positively to displays of power. The Russians have a proverb: man is wolf to man. Maybe some people want to have an alpha to make their pack the biggest and baddest in the forest. I don't think this tendency is exclusive to Russians. But it sure takes a lot of minimizing and rationalizing to make a hero out of Stalin.
Posted by: lily | January 19, 2005 at 06:23 PM
As far as I'm concerned, it's too soon for the Confederate South to be redeemed. So Stalin is right off the table.
Posted by: Phil | January 19, 2005 at 06:34 PM
In a country in with a controlled press and a long tradition of the government sending out subtle signals, what to make of this resurrection of Stalin? It is clearly deliberate.
Most likely, it reflects a pandering to those nostalgic for what was allegedly good about Russia's communist past. It reflects an appeal to patriotism for the Great Patriotic War. It reinforces Putin's base, so to speak.
It also represents a whitewashing of the monstrous past represented by that history, and a nostalgia for the power and control that flowed from those practices.
Just another dark omen about Russia's future.
Posted by: dmbeaster | January 19, 2005 at 06:35 PM
Is it time to start talking about seeing into Putin's soul?
Posted by: Anarch | January 19, 2005 at 07:33 PM
If Germany does put up a statute of Hitler, I will hold most neo cons responsible to some degree. They are mirroring his behavior by much of their actions. It is w/ a tremendous sense of irony that this seems to be happening.
Yet the jailed oftentimes mirror the jailers.....
Posted by: moe99 | January 19, 2005 at 07:46 PM
Looks like Putin's going to do Santayana one better: Those who remember the past are doomed to repeat it, too.
Posted by: CaseyL | January 19, 2005 at 08:47 PM