Adrian Karatnycky: Russians try to forget some of Stalin's crimes
[Mr. Karatnycky is a senior scholar at the Atlantic Council of the U.S.]
Today marks 55 years since the death of Joseph Stalin. But in Russia, his terrible legacy will receive scant attention and will not be subject to repudiation by those at the apex of power. This is because, under Vladimir Putin, official assessments of Stalin and the Soviet past have become rooted in amorality and studied ambivalence, not the unequivocal condemnations that characterized the Yeltsin years. As Mr. Putin prepares to hand the Russian presidency -- though not the full reins of power -- to his protégé Dmitry Medvedev, there are few signs this legacy will be reversed.
Indeed, Mr. Putin has used his eight years as president to reclaim much of the Soviet past that Russia's leaders jettisoned after the fall of communism. He has publicly promoted the image of Stalin as an effective, if dictatorial, leader responsible for the defeat of the Nazis. In this way, the departing Russian president publicly restored the myths of the Brezhnev era -- rather than the view of many contemporary historians that Stalin's alliance with Hitler was immoral and that the Soviet Union was dangerously unprepared for the eventual Nazi invasion.
At times, Mr. Putin can find appropriately harsh words for Stalin's crimes. Last November, at a Stalin-era killing field on the outskirts of Moscow, Mr. Putin spoke of those "who were executed, sent to camps, shot and tortured...in the thousands and millions of people. We need to do a great deal to ensure this is never forgotten."
Yet despite the many millions who died in Stalin's purges, death camps and forced famines, Mr. Putin insists the carnage was "less than [in] some countries." And he asserted flatly that Stalin's crimes were lesser than those committed by the U.S. when it dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and conducted bombing campaigns in Vietnam. Moreover, Mr. Putin has refused to cooperate with Ukraine in the commemoration of the Stalin-induced forced famine of 1932-33, and his propagandists assert that -- despite more than five million dead on Ukrainian soil -- the terror-famine did not have genocide as its aim.
Mr. Putin's approach to the Russian Revolution has been equally contradictory. In November 2005, his government approved a new monument to Feliks Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka. Yet even as the Kremlin officially honored the leader of the security force that in 1918 executed Russia's royal family, it was arranging the return from Denmark of the remains of Russia's Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, the mother of the very czar whom Dzerzhinsky's charges had executed.
Then there's Mr. Putin's view of the recent Soviet past. He laments the Soviet Union's collapse as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century." He has dropped a post-Soviet national anthem and restored the music of the Soviet hymn in its place, with a new text that echoes the communist past. Yet he has also lavished praise on Andrei Sakharov, one of the most outspoken critics of the USSR, as "a visionary" who showed "a road for the nation to follow."
This isn't just about symbolism. Mr. Putin's articulation of a new Russian state ideology reflects similar ambiguities. He has asserted his support for democracy and the market even as he has imposed restrictions on political space and regained state control over major industries. His mixed signals about Russia's history go hand in hand with his mixed signals about its role in the world today -- which lurch from aspirations to integrate into the advanced industrial world to harsh condemnations of the West....
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Today marks 55 years since the death of Joseph Stalin. But in Russia, his terrible legacy will receive scant attention and will not be subject to repudiation by those at the apex of power. This is because, under Vladimir Putin, official assessments of Stalin and the Soviet past have become rooted in amorality and studied ambivalence, not the unequivocal condemnations that characterized the Yeltsin years. As Mr. Putin prepares to hand the Russian presidency -- though not the full reins of power -- to his protégé Dmitry Medvedev, there are few signs this legacy will be reversed.
Indeed, Mr. Putin has used his eight years as president to reclaim much of the Soviet past that Russia's leaders jettisoned after the fall of communism. He has publicly promoted the image of Stalin as an effective, if dictatorial, leader responsible for the defeat of the Nazis. In this way, the departing Russian president publicly restored the myths of the Brezhnev era -- rather than the view of many contemporary historians that Stalin's alliance with Hitler was immoral and that the Soviet Union was dangerously unprepared for the eventual Nazi invasion.
At times, Mr. Putin can find appropriately harsh words for Stalin's crimes. Last November, at a Stalin-era killing field on the outskirts of Moscow, Mr. Putin spoke of those "who were executed, sent to camps, shot and tortured...in the thousands and millions of people. We need to do a great deal to ensure this is never forgotten."
Yet despite the many millions who died in Stalin's purges, death camps and forced famines, Mr. Putin insists the carnage was "less than [in] some countries." And he asserted flatly that Stalin's crimes were lesser than those committed by the U.S. when it dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and conducted bombing campaigns in Vietnam. Moreover, Mr. Putin has refused to cooperate with Ukraine in the commemoration of the Stalin-induced forced famine of 1932-33, and his propagandists assert that -- despite more than five million dead on Ukrainian soil -- the terror-famine did not have genocide as its aim.
Mr. Putin's approach to the Russian Revolution has been equally contradictory. In November 2005, his government approved a new monument to Feliks Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka. Yet even as the Kremlin officially honored the leader of the security force that in 1918 executed Russia's royal family, it was arranging the return from Denmark of the remains of Russia's Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, the mother of the very czar whom Dzerzhinsky's charges had executed.
Then there's Mr. Putin's view of the recent Soviet past. He laments the Soviet Union's collapse as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century." He has dropped a post-Soviet national anthem and restored the music of the Soviet hymn in its place, with a new text that echoes the communist past. Yet he has also lavished praise on Andrei Sakharov, one of the most outspoken critics of the USSR, as "a visionary" who showed "a road for the nation to follow."
This isn't just about symbolism. Mr. Putin's articulation of a new Russian state ideology reflects similar ambiguities. He has asserted his support for democracy and the market even as he has imposed restrictions on political space and regained state control over major industries. His mixed signals about Russia's history go hand in hand with his mixed signals about its role in the world today -- which lurch from aspirations to integrate into the advanced industrial world to harsh condemnations of the West....