Thomas Sherlock: Stalin's Ghost
[Thomas Sherlock is a professor of political science at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.]
Over the objections of many Russians, posters bearing Stalin’s image were approved by Moscow’s city government for display during celebrations marking Victory Day in Russia on Sunday. The issue was debated in the weeks leading up to the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, and, in the end, the anti-Stalinists won. Only a few such posters were on display, and they were hardly prominent.
This latest battle over how to remember The Great Patriotic War is part of an ongoing struggle for Russia’s post-Soviet identity. Since 2007, a widely used high school history textbook for teachers, developed by the Kremlin, has openly praised Stalin’s wartime leadership and condemned Allied behavior as perfidious. And in 2009 the Kremlin created a history commission dominated by the security services to counter foreign and domestic arguments that the Soviet Union shared responsibility with Nazi Germany for starting the war.
Western scholars and commentators have used such facts to argue that Russia has clearly failed the “Stalin test” — that the brutal dictator (and the Soviet era as a whole) has enjoyed a gradual rehabilitation under Vladimir Putin.
But an opposing trend has been gathering strength in Russia for some time, often with the support of President Dmitri Medvedev and with at least the partial approval of Prime Minister Putin. Consider the following: Apart from a few important exceptions — like the history textbooks — positive official references to Stalin have been rare since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although in the 1990s, President Boris Yeltsin was unwilling to launch a sustained condemnation, he stood as a bulwark against Stalin’s rehabilitation. Mr. Putin has obviously favored a more positive assessment of the Soviet era, but he has nevertheless temporized, preferring silence to debate on the Soviet past....
Over the objections of many Russians, posters bearing Stalin’s image were approved by Moscow’s city government for display during celebrations marking Victory Day in Russia on Sunday. The issue was debated in the weeks leading up to the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, and, in the end, the anti-Stalinists won. Only a few such posters were on display, and they were hardly prominent.
This latest battle over how to remember The Great Patriotic War is part of an ongoing struggle for Russia’s post-Soviet identity. Since 2007, a widely used high school history textbook for teachers, developed by the Kremlin, has openly praised Stalin’s wartime leadership and condemned Allied behavior as perfidious. And in 2009 the Kremlin created a history commission dominated by the security services to counter foreign and domestic arguments that the Soviet Union shared responsibility with Nazi Germany for starting the war.
Western scholars and commentators have used such facts to argue that Russia has clearly failed the “Stalin test” — that the brutal dictator (and the Soviet era as a whole) has enjoyed a gradual rehabilitation under Vladimir Putin.
But an opposing trend has been gathering strength in Russia for some time, often with the support of President Dmitri Medvedev and with at least the partial approval of Prime Minister Putin. Consider the following: Apart from a few important exceptions — like the history textbooks — positive official references to Stalin have been rare since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although in the 1990s, President Boris Yeltsin was unwilling to launch a sustained condemnation, he stood as a bulwark against Stalin’s rehabilitation. Mr. Putin has obviously favored a more positive assessment of the Soviet era, but he has nevertheless temporized, preferring silence to debate on the Soviet past.
Read entire article at I.H.T.
Over the objections of many Russians, posters bearing Stalin’s image were approved by Moscow’s city government for display during celebrations marking Victory Day in Russia on Sunday. The issue was debated in the weeks leading up to the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, and, in the end, the anti-Stalinists won. Only a few such posters were on display, and they were hardly prominent.
This latest battle over how to remember The Great Patriotic War is part of an ongoing struggle for Russia’s post-Soviet identity. Since 2007, a widely used high school history textbook for teachers, developed by the Kremlin, has openly praised Stalin’s wartime leadership and condemned Allied behavior as perfidious. And in 2009 the Kremlin created a history commission dominated by the security services to counter foreign and domestic arguments that the Soviet Union shared responsibility with Nazi Germany for starting the war.
Western scholars and commentators have used such facts to argue that Russia has clearly failed the “Stalin test” — that the brutal dictator (and the Soviet era as a whole) has enjoyed a gradual rehabilitation under Vladimir Putin.
But an opposing trend has been gathering strength in Russia for some time, often with the support of President Dmitri Medvedev and with at least the partial approval of Prime Minister Putin. Consider the following: Apart from a few important exceptions — like the history textbooks — positive official references to Stalin have been rare since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although in the 1990s, President Boris Yeltsin was unwilling to launch a sustained condemnation, he stood as a bulwark against Stalin’s rehabilitation. Mr. Putin has obviously favored a more positive assessment of the Soviet era, but he has nevertheless temporized, preferring silence to debate on the Soviet past....
Over the objections of many Russians, posters bearing Stalin’s image were approved by Moscow’s city government for display during celebrations marking Victory Day in Russia on Sunday. The issue was debated in the weeks leading up to the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, and, in the end, the anti-Stalinists won. Only a few such posters were on display, and they were hardly prominent.
This latest battle over how to remember The Great Patriotic War is part of an ongoing struggle for Russia’s post-Soviet identity. Since 2007, a widely used high school history textbook for teachers, developed by the Kremlin, has openly praised Stalin’s wartime leadership and condemned Allied behavior as perfidious. And in 2009 the Kremlin created a history commission dominated by the security services to counter foreign and domestic arguments that the Soviet Union shared responsibility with Nazi Germany for starting the war.
Western scholars and commentators have used such facts to argue that Russia has clearly failed the “Stalin test” — that the brutal dictator (and the Soviet era as a whole) has enjoyed a gradual rehabilitation under Vladimir Putin.
But an opposing trend has been gathering strength in Russia for some time, often with the support of President Dmitri Medvedev and with at least the partial approval of Prime Minister Putin. Consider the following: Apart from a few important exceptions — like the history textbooks — positive official references to Stalin have been rare since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although in the 1990s, President Boris Yeltsin was unwilling to launch a sustained condemnation, he stood as a bulwark against Stalin’s rehabilitation. Mr. Putin has obviously favored a more positive assessment of the Soviet era, but he has nevertheless temporized, preferring silence to debate on the Soviet past.