The Return of Stalin

[DARPA]

45% of Russian citizens believe the victims of the Stalinist era justified. Corresponding sociology, presented "Levada Center", is a direct continuation of the military-patriotic mobilization, which has recently fallen Russian society. In comparison, only three years ago a similar assessment of Stalin gave 25% of respondents - a huge growth. 39% of Russians positively evaluated and the very identity of the leader. This last figure is particularly touching motivation. Here, 30% experienced Stalin respect, admiration 2% and as much as 7% - sympathy. Cute nevertheless we had a dictator, joked, had a fashion accessory - the handset. And speaking of sympathy - in the wake of import substitution in Russia appeared hipster clothing brand "Renaissance", which among other things offers its customers wear a T-shirt with the image of a young Dzhugashvili.

Mentally healthy person can be a Stalinist only due to poor awareness. Now, apparently, there is no problem with it: the available resources is more than enough, take it and learn, formative assessment past. You can open, for example, a biography of any person from the first half of the XX century Russian and make sure that with a significant probability that biography is dropped in the 30s. You can get acquainted with a remarkable series of "History of Stalinism", which is published by the publishing house for many years ROSSPEN and gives way, quite complex evaluation of social processes that era. Available documentary and feature movies for very different audience. Finally, you can read the stories Shalamova - the worst Russian writer.

All this does not happen - and for obvious reasons. People are too busy surviving to reflect on the past. On the apologia of Stalin in these conditions indifference to the true history of working two cars at once, which in recent years are more closely synchronized. On the one hand, in the community, at school programs and large propaganda media ban on criticism of Russia's history. Russian history is now officially flawless and went from victory to victory, from the great accomplishments of the imperial period to more Soviet greatness. We apologize not for that, but the reason for grief, if they exist, then relate solely to the influence of external forces hostile to the West.

Note that even in the Soviet Union was not like this: there is still censured damned tsarism and the revolution was understood as a light shed on centuries of the kingdom of darkness. Now Russia is finally and completely infallible, right from Prince St. Vladimir. So, once our whole country has no flaws, then criticize Stalin also wrong. We can say that he was wrong in detail, somewhere overreacted, but in general "the victims were justified" because, you know, great goals, "left Russia with an atomic bomb," winning the war and industrialization.

People are starting to get used to, that anyone who criticizes Russia's past, most likely, a traitor and a scoundrel, from which you want to distance themselves. The phrase "Stalin, of course, the bloody dictator, but ..." perfectly illustrates this logic. It is a consequence of misguided patriotism, when the tactical and petty goals justify the current political regime in Russia justified all the previous regimes - in bulk, as co-authors of the great Russian statehood.

The second machine, exalting Stalin, first seen as purely marginal, but now miraculously becomes mainstream. It is connected with the activities of patriotic historians impostors.

Walk into any major bookstore - all the shelves it will be lined with creations like "Stalin: remember together" Nikolai Starikov, drawing a pastoral image of a tired mustachioed leader, patriot, big daddy. The popularity of these books is related to the mass of ressentiment, which has been tested post-Soviet society. Old social structure disintegrated, new benefit is not all. People are poor, infrastructure is falling apart before our eyes. And most importantly - before we walked in the vanguard of humanity to a bright future under the smiling Gagarin, and now trying without much success to understand its place in the international division of capitalist labor. Image of Stalin in this troubled and dangerous world is designed to give the "right answer" to difficult questions, and most importantly - to name those responsible for our troubles. Not by chance 24% of Russians called in 2015 the death of the leader of "the loss of teachers."

Russians are less protest against the renaming of Volgograd Stalingrad, against the installation of a monument to Stalin as commander in chief in Great Patriotic War on the 70th anniversary of the victory. This historical illusion of a good memory of the leader while peacefully coexist in a society with a general reluctance recurrence of repression and terror of the 30s. Return Stalin still looks velvet longing for the wise "father of nations." A more fundamental question, which we must not forget is how the current Russian Federation, in principle, is an ideological product of Stalinism, not comprehend until now their heritage. As far as Stalin - is us.