Rehabbing Stalin
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An opinion is right. The author is only noticing the rehab of Stalin now?
It’s been going on piecemeal since at least, 2005. Perhaps even earlier. In the mind of a vast majority of Russians, Stalin represents the apogee of Russian power and influence. Following Stalin’s death in 1953, Soviet power steadily declined and culminated in the dissolution of the USSR and the chaos that followed until Putin was handed the Presidency. Putin, being the populist autocrat he is, champions the societal ethos of the Stalinist image of power and greatness. It is quite irrelevant whether Stalin was a more murderous tyrant than Hitler or that people in the West should be outraged that Stalin’s image is being rehabilitated in Putin’s Russia. To Russians, Stalin means not a flawed person or a bloodthirsty tyrant, but rather Stalin is the sum total of Russian power and determination to raise itself from the ashes of destruction and achieve greatness. Stalin the man is merely an imperfect icon reflecting the greatness of Russia.
