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Bringing Stalin Back In: Memory Politics and the Creation of a Useable Past in Putin’s Russia
While Joseph Stalin is commonly reviled in the West as a murderous tyrant who committed egregious human rights abuses against his own people, in Russia he is often positively viewed as the symbol of Soviet-era stability and state power. How can there be such a disparity in perspectives? Utilizing an ethnographic approach, extensive interview data, and critical discourse analysis, this book examines the ways that the political elite in Russia are able to control and manipulate historical discourse about the Stalin period in order to advance their own political objectives. Appropriating the Stalinist discourse, they minimize or ignore outright crimes of the Soviet period, and instead focus on positive aspects of Stalin’s rule, especially his role in leading the Soviet Union to victory in the Second World War. Advancing the concepts of “preventive” and “complex” co-optation, this book analyzes how elites in Russia inhibit the emergence of groups that espouse alternative narratives, while promoting message-friendly groups that are in line with the Kremlin’s agenda. Bringing the resources of the state to bear, the Russian elite are able to co-opt multiple avenues of discourse formulation and dissemination. Elite-sponsored discourse positions Stalin as the symbol of a strong, centralized state that was capable of great achievements, despite great cost, enabling favorably portrayals of Stalin as part of a tradition of harsh but effective rulers in Russian history, such as Peter the Great. This strong state discourse is used to legitimize the return of authoritarianism in Russia today.
182 pages, Paperback
Published July 15, 2021
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December 6, 2025
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Главная идея обсуждаемой книги пересекается с главной идеей книги «It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway» в которой автор так же приводит сначала описание сталинского террора, а после цитирует мнение некоторых россиян о Сталине, которые по совокупности имеют положительный окрас в отношении Сталина.
Stalin is a popular figure in Russia today. A poll in 2017 showed that almost half of all Russians hold positive views of Stalin (Taylor 2017). In 2005, a survey conducted by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion found that “42 percent of the Russian people wanted the return of a ‘leader like Stalin’ (60 percent of the respondents over sixty years of age were in favor of a ‘new Stalin’)” (Figes 2007: 641). Other polls show that Russians, especially Russian youth, are uninformed about, or have ambivalent attitudes toward, the crimes of the Stalinist period (Mendel-son and Gerber 2005).
По итогу создаётся ощущение, что россияне настолько аморальные, что они могут оправдать любого маньяка, любого кровопийцу, который ещё совсем недавно пачками уничтожал их собственных соотечественников и даже родственников. Честно сказать я уже устал читать одно и то же в каждой книге о том, как Путин якобы то ли восстанавливает сталинизм, то ли «обеляет» Сталина и как у Путина всё это хорошо получается. Очень печально, что многие иностранцы верят в то, что говорит и показывает российское телевидение, а так же то, что у них полностью отсутствует критическое мышление. Как показали эти книги, можно быть американским профессором и при этом совершенно не понимать, как устроена страна, о который ты пишешь. В реальности левая идеология не стала популярной после правления Ельцина, количество пионеров не возросло, так же как не пошла в гору поддержка КПРФ. К монументу Сталина в день его смерти так же приходит ничтожно малое количество людей и единственный индикатор так называемой «популярности» Сталина мы обнаруживаем лишь в социологических опросах, проводимых в авторитарной стране, в стране в которой идея капитализма и либерализма были опорочены и преданы самими либералами и сторонниками капитализма. Так что я бы говорил о сегодняшнем Сталине как о мифе, а не как о реальной фигуре.
Сегодня Сталин превратился в России в мифическую фигуру, которая символизирует в обществе не террор в отношении простого народа, а террор в отношении элиты, в отношении партийной бюрократии, террор в отношении чиновников. Именно этим и знаменит Сталин – он расстреливал не только простых работяг, но и чиновников и представителей элиты. Сегодня люди хотят увидеть именно это – репрессии в отношении взорвавшихся чинуш, которые живут настолько роскошно, что с их уровнем жизни могут соперничать лишь монархи нефтяных арабских стран. Во-вторых, страна оказалось в той же ситуации что и послевоенная Германия после поражения в войне, когда Гитлер и национал-социалисты всё ещё были популярны. Как мы знаем, популярность Гитлера пошла на убыль только после 70-ых, т.е. только после того как благосостояние западных немцев улучшилось.
Вторая проблема книги состоит в том, что автор убеждён в эффективности сегодняшней политики российского правительства по обелению сталинского времени или по фальсификации советской истории в пользу принятия авторитаризма как нормы, включая идею жертвенности во время Второй Мировой войны.
The different ways that the Stalinist Terror and the Great Patriotic War are covered in the news and other popular media such as television programs and movies is instructive as to how the media are used to advance a discourse that favors the latter over the former. The sheer volume of programming dedicated to the war is astounding, and would surely be noticeable to anyone visiting Russia for enough time to watch television for even a day or so (see Kucherenko 2011). Norris (2007) points out that “in 2004 and 2005 alone Russian television broadcast eight television serials set during the war” (164). Kucherenko (2011) notes that programs of this type often specifically target children as part of a state effort to promote patriotism, and to pass the symbolism and importance of the war to new generations.
Автор не учитывает, что это советская практика, которая даже в Советском Союзе работала лишь частично. К примеру, газету «Правда» выписывала вся страна, но кто её читал? Никто. И ещё меньше людей искренне верили в то, что писала «Правда». То же самое справедливо и в нашем случаи. Да, в нынешней России выпускается много «патриотического» кино и литературы, но как много людей смотри и читает всё это и насколько много людей верит во всё это? Легко в это верить, когда нефть стоит 100$ за баррель, но чем хуже экономическая ситуация в стране, тем труднее верить в государственную пропаганду, включая историческую пропаганду. Поэтому проблема этой книги в том, что автор принимает фасад государства за истину, реальность или другими словами, в этой книге нет никаких доказательств эффективности российской пропаганды, включая эффективности всех этих сериалов.
К сожалению, автор недостаточно критичен и поэтому далее он делает ещё более абсурдный вывод о том, что не только телевидение успешно продвигает авторитарную модель правления с новым Сталиным во главе, но что это так же эффективно делают в российских школах учителя.
This deference, which I observed personally throughout my time at university in Russia, as well as during several visits to Russian high school classrooms, gives teachers substantial authority, and reduces the possibility of student agency, which is already quite limited, in questioning material that is taught. The idea of students as agentic, as Davies (1990) has noted, is problematic even in more open societies; for one, because of the desire on the part of students to correctly fit in with the collective discourse, and for another, teachers “control the flow of events” in the classroom and “provide authoritative interpretations for the group” (357). We will return to students and teachers in subsequent sections of this chapter. For now, suffice it to say that teacher authority in Russia is substantial, and this gives greater impact to the state-sponsored narratives that they are required to teach in reproducing state-sponsored discourse.
Смешно читать, что в России учителя обладают высоким авторитетом, высоким доверием среди школьников. Возможно в США учителя и обладают высоким авторитетом и что американские школьники верят всему, что скажет им учитель, но в России ситуация обстоит ровно наоборот – учителя, это последние люди которым поверят школьники. Учитель в России созвучен со соловом «неудачник», т.е. человек который не смог придумать ничего лучшего чем пойти в педагогический ВУЗ.
The emphasis on economic modernization in Russian history curricula, and the assertion that this is best achieved by a strong, centralized state, has several implications. The first is that such portrayals make it easier for the elite to maintain the authoritarian system that they have put in place in Russia.
Идея что, нормализуя советский строй можно укреплять режим личной власти диктатора, выглядит очень соблазнительной, однако в реальности всё обстоит совсем по-другому. Действительно, многим иностранцам плохо знакомым с современной Россией может показаться соблазнительным идея, что Путин успешно продвигает обеление советского строя именно с целью дальнейшего усиления деспотизма в России. Это, безусловно, имеет место. Однако это влияние вторично, а первичным является совсем иное. К примеру, высокие цены на нефть, плюс, отказ Ельцина от построения демократии, создание мягкого авторитаризма и при этом создание всех условий (Конституции, законов и законодательных практик) для построения жёсткого авторитаризма. Консолидация элиты под идеей необходимости «сильной руки» в начале 2000-х годов. Создание Ельциным олигархов и подчинение всей экономики строго определённым кланам. Именно это было первопричиной создания путинской диктатуры, которая выросла из мягкого авторитаризма Ельцина, а не продвижение «приукрашенной» истории сталинского периода или советского периода в целом, как это пытается показать эта книга.
Однако книга плоха даже не этим, а тем, что она состоит из двух частей или двух тем. Первая часть посвящена современной путинской России, а вторая часть является исторической, посвящённой сталинским репрессиям. Таким образом, у нас получилась две книги в одной. Получилось, что автор включил две разных темы, но обе темы в итоге получились очень поверхностными. Если я захочу прочитать про сталинский террор, я возьму отдельную книгу на данную тему, но здесь же автор позиционирует свою книгу как исследование по приукрашиванию сталинского прошлого в интересах нынешнего путинского режима. Автору нужно было выбрать что-то одно: либо писать исключительно про сегодняшнюю Россию либо только про сталинские репрессии. Эти темы смешивать нельзя!
The main idea of the book under discussion overlaps with the main idea of the book "It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway", in which the author also first describes Stalin's terror and then quotes the opinions of some Russians about Stalin, which, taken together, have a positive tone toward Stalin.
Stalin is a popular figure in Russia today. A poll in 2017 showed that almost half of all Russians hold positive views of Stalin (Taylor 2017). In 2005, a survey conducted by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion found that “42 percent of the Russian people wanted the return of a ‘leader like Stalin’ (60 percent of the respondents over sixty years of age were in favor of a ‘new Stalin’)” (Figes 2007: 641). Other polls show that Russians, especially Russian youth, are uninformed about, or have ambivalent attitudes toward, the crimes of the Stalinist period (Mendel-son and Gerber 2005).
The overall impression is that Russians are so immoral that they can justify any maniac, any bloodthirsty monster who, until recently, was killing their own compatriots and even relatives. The overall impression is that Russians are so immoral that they can justify any maniac, any bloodthirsty monster who, until recently, was killing their own compatriots and even relatives. To be honest, I'm tired of reading the same thing in every book about how Putin is supposedly either restoring Stalinism or “whitewashing” Stalin, and how Putin is doing so well at it. It is very sad that many foreigners believe what Russian television says and shows, and that they completely lack critical thinking. As these books have shown, it is possible to be an American professor and yet have no understanding of how the country you are writing about works. In reality, leftist ideology did not become popular after Yeltsin's rule; the number of pioneers did not increase, nor did support for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation rise. On the anniversary of Stalin's death, a negligible number of people visit his monument, and the only indicator of Stalin's so-called “popularity” can be found in sociological surveys conducted in an authoritarian country, a country where the ideas of capitalism and liberalism have been discredited and betrayed by liberals and supporters of capitalism themselves. So I would speak of today's Stalin as a myth, not as a real figure.
Today, Stalin has become a mythical figure in Russia, symbolizing not terror against the common people, but terror against the elite, against the party bureaucracy, terror against officials. This is what Stalin is famous for— he shot not only ordinary workers, but also officials and representatives of the elite. Today, people want to see just that —repression against corrupt officials who live so luxuriously that only the monarchs of the oil-rich Arab countries can rival their standard of living. Secondly, the country found itself in the same situation as post-war Germany after its defeat in the war, when Hitler and the National Socialists were still popular. As we know, Hitler's popularity only declined after the 1970s, i.e., only after the welfare of West Germans had improved.
The second problem with the book is that the author is convinced of the effectiveness of the Russian government's current policy of whitewashing the Stalin era or falsifying Soviet history in favor of accepting authoritarianism as the norm, including the idea of sacrifice during World War II.
The different ways that the Stalinist Terror and the Great Patriotic War are covered in the news and other popular media such as television programs and movies is instructive as to how the media are used to advance a discourse that favors the latter over the former. The sheer volume of programming dedicated to the war is astounding, and would surely be noticeable to anyone visiting Russia for enough time to watch television for even a day or so (see Kucherenko 2011). Norris (2007) points out that “in 2004 and 2005 alone Russian television broadcast eight television serials set during the war” (164). Kucherenko (2011) notes that programs of this type often specifically target children as part of a state effort to promote patriotism, and to pass the symbolism and importance of the war to new generations.
The author fails to take into account that this is a Soviet practice, which even in the Soviet Union worked only partially. For example, the entire country subscribed to the newspaper Pravda, but who read it? No one. And even fewer people sincerely believed what Pravda wrote. The same is true in our case. Yes, in today's Russia, a lot of “patriotic” films and literature are produced, but how many people watch and read all this, and how many people believe in it? It is easy to believe this when oil costs $100 per barrel, but the worse the economic situation in the country, the harder it is to believe state propaganda, including historical propaganda. Therefore, the problem with this book is that the author takes the facade of the state as truth, reality, or, in other words, there is no evidence in this book of the effectiveness of Russian propaganda, including the effectiveness of all these TV series.
Unfortunately, the author is not critical enough and therefore goes on to make an even more absurd conclusion that not only television successfully promotes an authoritarian model of government with a new Stalin at its head, but that teachers in Russian schools do so just as effectively.
This deference, which I observed personally throughout my time at university in Russia, as well as during several visits to Russian high school classrooms, gives teachers substantial authority, and reduces the possibility of student agency, which is already quite limited, in questioning material that is taught. The idea of students as agentic, as Davies (1990) has noted, is problematic even in more open societies; for one, because of the desire on the part of students to correctly fit in with the collective discourse, and for another, teachers “control the flow of events” in the classroom and “provide authoritative interpretations for the group” (357). We will return to students and teachers in subsequent sections of this chapter. For now, suffice it to say that teacher authority in Russia is substantial, and this gives greater impact to the state-sponsored narratives that they are required to teach in reproducing state-sponsored discourse.
It's funny to read that teachers in Russia have a lot of respect and trust from students. Maybe teachers in the US have a lot of respect, and American students believe everything their teachers tell them, but in Russia it's the opposite—teachers are the last people students would trust. In Russia, the word “teacher” is synonymous with “loser,” i.e., someone who couldn't think of anything better to do than go to a teacher training college.
The emphasis on economic modernization in Russian history curricula, and the assertion that this is best achieved by a strong, centralized state, has several implications. The first is that such portrayals make it easier for the elite to maintain the authoritarian system that they have put in place in Russia.
The idea that normalizing the Soviet system can strengthen the dictator's personal power seems very tempting, but in reality, things are quite different. Indeed, many foreigners who are unfamiliar with modern Russia may find it tempting to believe that Putin is successfully promoting the whitewashing of the Soviet system precisely in order to further strengthen despotism in Russia. This is certainly the case. However, this influence is secondary, and the primary influence is quite different. For example, high oil prices, plus Yeltsin's refusal to build democracy, created soft authoritarianism, and at the same time, the creation of all the conditions (constitution, laws, and legislative practices) for building hard authoritarianism. The consolidation of the elite around the idea of the need for a “strong hand” in the early 2000s. Yeltsin's creation of oligarchs and the subjugation of the entire economy to strictly defined clans. This was the root cause of Putin's dictatorship, which grew out of Yeltsin's soft authoritarianism, rather than the promotion of a “whitewashed” history of the Stalinist period or the Soviet period as a whole, as this book attempts to show.
However, the book is not even bad because of this, but because it consists of two parts or two themes. The first part is devoted to modern Putin's Russia, and the second part is historical, devoted to Stalin's repressions. Thus, we ended up with two books in one. It turned out that the author included two different themes, but both themes ended up being very superficial. If I want to read about Stalin's terror, I will pick up a separate book on the subject, but here the author positions his book as a study of the whitewashing of Stalin's past in the interests of the current Putin regime. The author should have chosen one of two options: either to write exclusively about today's Russia or only about Stalin's repressions. These topics cannot be mixed!
Главная идея обсуждаемой книги пересекается с главной идеей книги «It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway» в которой автор так же приводит сначала описание сталинского террора, а после цитирует мнение некоторых россиян о Сталине, которые по совокупности имеют положительный окрас в отношении Сталина.
Stalin is a popular figure in Russia today. A poll in 2017 showed that almost half of all Russians hold positive views of Stalin (Taylor 2017). In 2005, a survey conducted by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion found that “42 percent of the Russian people wanted the return of a ‘leader like Stalin’ (60 percent of the respondents over sixty years of age were in favor of a ‘new Stalin’)” (Figes 2007: 641). Other polls show that Russians, especially Russian youth, are uninformed about, or have ambivalent attitudes toward, the crimes of the Stalinist period (Mendel-son and Gerber 2005).
По итогу создаётся ощущение, что россияне настолько аморальные, что они могут оправдать любого маньяка, любого кровопийцу, который ещё совсем недавно пачками уничтожал их собственных соотечественников и даже родственников. Честно сказать я уже устал читать одно и то же в каждой книге о том, как Путин якобы то ли восстанавливает сталинизм, то ли «обеляет» Сталина и как у Путина всё это хорошо получается. Очень печально, что многие иностранцы верят в то, что говорит и показывает российское телевидение, а так же то, что у них полностью отсутствует критическое мышление. Как показали эти книги, можно быть американским профессором и при этом совершенно не понимать, как устроена страна, о который ты пишешь. В реальности левая идеология не стала популярной после правления Ельцина, количество пионеров не возросло, так же как не пошла в гору поддержка КПРФ. К монументу Сталина в день его смерти так же приходит ничтожно малое количество людей и единственный индикатор так называемой «популярности» Сталина мы обнаруживаем лишь в социологических опросах, проводимых в авторитарной стране, в стране в которой идея капитализма и либерализма были опорочены и преданы самими либералами и сторонниками капитализма. Так что я бы говорил о сегодняшнем Сталине как о мифе, а не как о реальной фигуре.
Сегодня Сталин превратился в России в мифическую фигуру, которая символизирует в обществе не террор в отношении простого народа, а террор в отношении элиты, в отношении партийной бюрократии, террор в отношении чиновников. Именно этим и знаменит Сталин – он расстреливал не только простых работяг, но и чиновников и представителей элиты. Сегодня люди хотят увидеть именно это – репрессии в отношении взорвавшихся чинуш, которые живут настолько роскошно, что с их уровнем жизни могут соперничать лишь монархи нефтяных арабских стран. Во-вторых, страна оказалось в той же ситуации что и послевоенная Германия после поражения в войне, когда Гитлер и национал-социалисты всё ещё были популярны. Как мы знаем, популярность Гитлера пошла на убыль только после 70-ых, т.е. только после того как благосостояние западных немцев улучшилось.
Вторая проблема книги состоит в том, что автор убеждён в эффективности сегодняшней политики российского правительства по обелению сталинского времени или по фальсификации советской истории в пользу принятия авторитаризма как нормы, включая идею жертвенности во время Второй Мировой войны.
The different ways that the Stalinist Terror and the Great Patriotic War are covered in the news and other popular media such as television programs and movies is instructive as to how the media are used to advance a discourse that favors the latter over the former. The sheer volume of programming dedicated to the war is astounding, and would surely be noticeable to anyone visiting Russia for enough time to watch television for even a day or so (see Kucherenko 2011). Norris (2007) points out that “in 2004 and 2005 alone Russian television broadcast eight television serials set during the war” (164). Kucherenko (2011) notes that programs of this type often specifically target children as part of a state effort to promote patriotism, and to pass the symbolism and importance of the war to new generations.
Автор не учитывает, что это советская практика, которая даже в Советском Союзе работала лишь частично. К примеру, газету «Правда» выписывала вся страна, но кто её читал? Никто. И ещё меньше людей искренне верили в то, что писала «Правда». То же самое справедливо и в нашем случаи. Да, в нынешней России выпускается много «патриотического» кино и литературы, но как много людей смотри и читает всё это и насколько много людей верит во всё это? Легко в это верить, когда нефть стоит 100$ за баррель, но чем хуже экономическая ситуация в стране, тем труднее верить в государственную пропаганду, включая историческую пропаганду. Поэтому проблема этой книги в том, что автор принимает фасад государства за истину, реальность или другими словами, в этой книге нет никаких доказательств эффективности российской пропаганды, включая эффективности всех этих сериалов.
К сожалению, автор недостаточно критичен и поэтому далее он делает ещё более абсурдный вывод о том, что не только телевидение успешно продвигает авторитарную модель правления с новым Сталиным во главе, но что это так же эффективно делают в российских школах учителя.
This deference, which I observed personally throughout my time at university in Russia, as well as during several visits to Russian high school classrooms, gives teachers substantial authority, and reduces the possibility of student agency, which is already quite limited, in questioning material that is taught. The idea of students as agentic, as Davies (1990) has noted, is problematic even in more open societies; for one, because of the desire on the part of students to correctly fit in with the collective discourse, and for another, teachers “control the flow of events” in the classroom and “provide authoritative interpretations for the group” (357). We will return to students and teachers in subsequent sections of this chapter. For now, suffice it to say that teacher authority in Russia is substantial, and this gives greater impact to the state-sponsored narratives that they are required to teach in reproducing state-sponsored discourse.
Смешно читать, что в России учителя обладают высоким авторитетом, высоким доверием среди школьников. Возможно в США учителя и обладают высоким авторитетом и что американские школьники верят всему, что скажет им учитель, но в России ситуация обстоит ровно наоборот – учителя, это последние люди которым поверят школьники. Учитель в России созвучен со соловом «неудачник», т.е. человек который не смог придумать ничего лучшего чем пойти в педагогический ВУЗ.
The emphasis on economic modernization in Russian history curricula, and the assertion that this is best achieved by a strong, centralized state, has several implications. The first is that such portrayals make it easier for the elite to maintain the authoritarian system that they have put in place in Russia.
Идея что, нормализуя советский строй можно укреплять режим личной власти диктатора, выглядит очень соблазнительной, однако в реальности всё обстоит совсем по-другому. Действительно, многим иностранцам плохо знакомым с современной Россией может показаться соблазнительным идея, что Путин успешно продвигает обеление советского строя именно с целью дальнейшего усиления деспотизма в России. Это, безусловно, имеет место. Однако это влияние вторично, а первичным является совсем иное. К примеру, высокие цены на нефть, плюс, отказ Ельцина от построения демократии, создание мягкого авторитаризма и при этом создание всех условий (Конституции, законов и законодательных практик) для построения жёсткого авторитаризма. Консолидация элиты под идеей необходимости «сильной руки» в начале 2000-х годов. Создание Ельциным олигархов и подчинение всей экономики строго определённым кланам. Именно это было первопричиной создания путинской диктатуры, которая выросла из мягкого авторитаризма Ельцина, а не продвижение «приукрашенной» истории сталинского периода или советского периода в целом, как это пытается показать эта книга.
Однако книга плоха даже не этим, а тем, что она состоит из двух частей или двух тем. Первая часть посвящена современной путинской России, а вторая часть является исторической, посвящённой сталинским репрессиям. Таким образом, у нас получилась две книги в одной. Получилось, что автор включил две разных темы, но обе темы в итоге получились очень поверхностными. Если я захочу прочитать про сталинский террор, я возьму отдельную книгу на данную тему, но здесь же автор позиционирует свою книгу как исследование по приукрашиванию сталинского прошлого в интересах нынешнего путинского режима. Автору нужно было выбрать что-то одно: либо писать исключительно про сегодняшнюю Россию либо только про сталинские репрессии. Эти темы смешивать нельзя!
The main idea of the book under discussion overlaps with the main idea of the book "It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway", in which the author also first describes Stalin's terror and then quotes the opinions of some Russians about Stalin, which, taken together, have a positive tone toward Stalin.
Stalin is a popular figure in Russia today. A poll in 2017 showed that almost half of all Russians hold positive views of Stalin (Taylor 2017). In 2005, a survey conducted by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion found that “42 percent of the Russian people wanted the return of a ‘leader like Stalin’ (60 percent of the respondents over sixty years of age were in favor of a ‘new Stalin’)” (Figes 2007: 641). Other polls show that Russians, especially Russian youth, are uninformed about, or have ambivalent attitudes toward, the crimes of the Stalinist period (Mendel-son and Gerber 2005).
The overall impression is that Russians are so immoral that they can justify any maniac, any bloodthirsty monster who, until recently, was killing their own compatriots and even relatives. The overall impression is that Russians are so immoral that they can justify any maniac, any bloodthirsty monster who, until recently, was killing their own compatriots and even relatives. To be honest, I'm tired of reading the same thing in every book about how Putin is supposedly either restoring Stalinism or “whitewashing” Stalin, and how Putin is doing so well at it. It is very sad that many foreigners believe what Russian television says and shows, and that they completely lack critical thinking. As these books have shown, it is possible to be an American professor and yet have no understanding of how the country you are writing about works. In reality, leftist ideology did not become popular after Yeltsin's rule; the number of pioneers did not increase, nor did support for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation rise. On the anniversary of Stalin's death, a negligible number of people visit his monument, and the only indicator of Stalin's so-called “popularity” can be found in sociological surveys conducted in an authoritarian country, a country where the ideas of capitalism and liberalism have been discredited and betrayed by liberals and supporters of capitalism themselves. So I would speak of today's Stalin as a myth, not as a real figure.
Today, Stalin has become a mythical figure in Russia, symbolizing not terror against the common people, but terror against the elite, against the party bureaucracy, terror against officials. This is what Stalin is famous for— he shot not only ordinary workers, but also officials and representatives of the elite. Today, people want to see just that —repression against corrupt officials who live so luxuriously that only the monarchs of the oil-rich Arab countries can rival their standard of living. Secondly, the country found itself in the same situation as post-war Germany after its defeat in the war, when Hitler and the National Socialists were still popular. As we know, Hitler's popularity only declined after the 1970s, i.e., only after the welfare of West Germans had improved.
The second problem with the book is that the author is convinced of the effectiveness of the Russian government's current policy of whitewashing the Stalin era or falsifying Soviet history in favor of accepting authoritarianism as the norm, including the idea of sacrifice during World War II.
The different ways that the Stalinist Terror and the Great Patriotic War are covered in the news and other popular media such as television programs and movies is instructive as to how the media are used to advance a discourse that favors the latter over the former. The sheer volume of programming dedicated to the war is astounding, and would surely be noticeable to anyone visiting Russia for enough time to watch television for even a day or so (see Kucherenko 2011). Norris (2007) points out that “in 2004 and 2005 alone Russian television broadcast eight television serials set during the war” (164). Kucherenko (2011) notes that programs of this type often specifically target children as part of a state effort to promote patriotism, and to pass the symbolism and importance of the war to new generations.
The author fails to take into account that this is a Soviet practice, which even in the Soviet Union worked only partially. For example, the entire country subscribed to the newspaper Pravda, but who read it? No one. And even fewer people sincerely believed what Pravda wrote. The same is true in our case. Yes, in today's Russia, a lot of “patriotic” films and literature are produced, but how many people watch and read all this, and how many people believe in it? It is easy to believe this when oil costs $100 per barrel, but the worse the economic situation in the country, the harder it is to believe state propaganda, including historical propaganda. Therefore, the problem with this book is that the author takes the facade of the state as truth, reality, or, in other words, there is no evidence in this book of the effectiveness of Russian propaganda, including the effectiveness of all these TV series.
Unfortunately, the author is not critical enough and therefore goes on to make an even more absurd conclusion that not only television successfully promotes an authoritarian model of government with a new Stalin at its head, but that teachers in Russian schools do so just as effectively.
This deference, which I observed personally throughout my time at university in Russia, as well as during several visits to Russian high school classrooms, gives teachers substantial authority, and reduces the possibility of student agency, which is already quite limited, in questioning material that is taught. The idea of students as agentic, as Davies (1990) has noted, is problematic even in more open societies; for one, because of the desire on the part of students to correctly fit in with the collective discourse, and for another, teachers “control the flow of events” in the classroom and “provide authoritative interpretations for the group” (357). We will return to students and teachers in subsequent sections of this chapter. For now, suffice it to say that teacher authority in Russia is substantial, and this gives greater impact to the state-sponsored narratives that they are required to teach in reproducing state-sponsored discourse.
It's funny to read that teachers in Russia have a lot of respect and trust from students. Maybe teachers in the US have a lot of respect, and American students believe everything their teachers tell them, but in Russia it's the opposite—teachers are the last people students would trust. In Russia, the word “teacher” is synonymous with “loser,” i.e., someone who couldn't think of anything better to do than go to a teacher training college.
The emphasis on economic modernization in Russian history curricula, and the assertion that this is best achieved by a strong, centralized state, has several implications. The first is that such portrayals make it easier for the elite to maintain the authoritarian system that they have put in place in Russia.
The idea that normalizing the Soviet system can strengthen the dictator's personal power seems very tempting, but in reality, things are quite different. Indeed, many foreigners who are unfamiliar with modern Russia may find it tempting to believe that Putin is successfully promoting the whitewashing of the Soviet system precisely in order to further strengthen despotism in Russia. This is certainly the case. However, this influence is secondary, and the primary influence is quite different. For example, high oil prices, plus Yeltsin's refusal to build democracy, created soft authoritarianism, and at the same time, the creation of all the conditions (constitution, laws, and legislative practices) for building hard authoritarianism. The consolidation of the elite around the idea of the need for a “strong hand” in the early 2000s. Yeltsin's creation of oligarchs and the subjugation of the entire economy to strictly defined clans. This was the root cause of Putin's dictatorship, which grew out of Yeltsin's soft authoritarianism, rather than the promotion of a “whitewashed” history of the Stalinist period or the Soviet period as a whole, as this book attempts to show.
However, the book is not even bad because of this, but because it consists of two parts or two themes. The first part is devoted to modern Putin's Russia, and the second part is historical, devoted to Stalin's repressions. Thus, we ended up with two books in one. It turned out that the author included two different themes, but both themes ended up being very superficial. If I want to read about Stalin's terror, I will pick up a separate book on the subject, but here the author positions his book as a study of the whitewashing of Stalin's past in the interests of the current Putin regime. The author should have chosen one of two options: either to write exclusively about today's Russia or only about Stalin's repressions. These topics cannot be mixed!
October 14, 2021
Here is a brilliantly articulated study of how villains become heroes. Throughout my reading I kept drawing parallels to how historical narratives in the US also are woven and manipulated. Right wing media moguls and conservative Texas schoolbook activists come to mind. Putin's Russia is the focus here but there's a broader lesson for any country currently facing a nationalistic right. It isn't a far leap from bringing Stalin back in to Make America Great Again. Hankering for the "good old days" is a part of the human condition and it can be exploited anywhere through similar means.
The author's deep knowledge of the country and personal experiences during his field research thread bits of narrative through an otherwise academic text, balancing the well sighted source materials with tangibility.
The author's deep knowledge of the country and personal experiences during his field research thread bits of narrative through an otherwise academic text, balancing the well sighted source materials with tangibility.
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