Earlier this week, it was reported that Russia is expanding the legal definition of treason potentially to outlaw any criticism of the government. Another troubling indication of Russia’s trend toward authoritarianism is the official campaign to rehabilitate Josef Stalin.

Stalin, the brutal Soviet dictator responsible for the deaths of millions of his citizens, has been undergoing a makeover of sorts in recent years. Russian authorities have reshaped the Georgia-born dictator’s image into that of a misunderstood, demonized leader who did what he had to do to mold the Soviet Union into the superpower it became.

In Russian classrooms, history teachers are guided by a new, government-approved textbook, Alexander Filippov’s “Modern History of Russia: 1945-2006,” which hails Stalin as an efficient manager who had to resort to extreme measures to modernize the lumbering Soviet agrarian economy.

There were, writes Filippov, “rational reasons behind the use of violence in order to ensure maximum efficiency.”

Vladimir Putin did his bit to sugarcoat Stalin’s legacy by telling history teachers in 2007 that, while Russian history has its “problematic pages”, other nations also have blots in their histories.

“We have fewer of them than other countries, and they were less terrible than in other nations,” Putin continued. “We can’t allow anyone to impose a sense of guilt on us.”

In related news, a Russian spy agency official has scoffed at Ukraine’s call for recognition of the 1930s famine as genocide.

“The Holodomor is a Ukrainian invention,” General Vasily Khristoforov, head of registration and archives department at the Federal Security Service (FSB), told the Interfax news agency.

“Ukraine is trying to prove that the 1930s famine was an act of genocide the Stalinist leadership committed against Ukrainians.

The Stalin icon posted above appeared on Robert Amsterdam’s blog with this caption:

Picture taken on November 29, 2008 shows a Russian Orthodox icon that includes a depiction of Soviet-era leader Josef Stalin at a St. Olga’s Church outside St. Petersburg in Strelna. Father Yevstafy Zhakov, the benficiary of St. Olga’s Church, recently put up the icon showing Stalin standing before the Blessed Matrona of Moscow, a 20th-century saint. Father Yevstafy commented that, according to legend, Stalin would frequently talk to the woman and that she gave him advice on how to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II.

Possibly related posts

• 6 February 2009 -- Vladimir Putin: St Paul redux?
• 25 January 2009 -- Mummies say it’s time to give Lenin a proper burial
• 2 January 2009 -- Russia moving toward oppressive stagnation
• 27 December 2008 -- Russian police raid office where Stalin-era documents stored

Tags: Josef Stalin, Russia, Tyranny, Vladimir Putin
Filed under: Europe, History
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