On the birthday of Joseph Stalin, December 21, Russians bring flowers to Stalin’s grave
near Kremlin’s wall.
On Monday, December 21, celebrating the birthday of Joseph Stalin, Russian communists’ leader Gennady Zyuganov made a statement: “One sees and feels, Stalin spring is coming. The current time had finally claimed Stalin, his great ideas and victorious actions.”
The same day Interfax agency published a statement of George Kamenev, the first secretary of the regional Communist Party Committee of the city of Penza about opening of the city’s Stalin Center.
“This is the scientific and historical and cultural center where we will explore the experience of Stalin and share it with the rest of Russia. In the Center we will be arranging panel discussions, we will invite historians, social activists, prominent people on the federal level”.
According to Kamenev, “the purpose of the center is promotion and actualization of the practices that have been used in the Stalin era, and which are relevant now.”
Kamenev told the Interfax agency that “The opening of Russia’s first Stalin Center is certainly a historic event”. He expressed hope that it will attract tourists from all over Russia to the Penza region.
Among the planned Center’s events: scientific conferences, public discussions, public screenings, as well as the establishment of Stalin Prize for history students.
Vladimir Sorokin, one of the most popular contemporary Russian writers, said this month in his interview to Polish TV: “Unfortunately Russia hadn’t buried the Soviet corpse. The corpse was pushed aside with an expectation that it will rot by itself. But it turns out to be tenacious. The forces that wanted to return to the past magically revived it. Now it stood up as a zombie. It looks awful, actually. It scares the civilized world.”
Russians often connect the return of Stalinism to the modern Putin’s politics. On many occasions one can find in Russian Internet the expression: “Putin is Stalin today!”. One can find also images like this one: “Russia is unconquerable!”
“Russia is unconquerable!”
It looks like Putin’s popularity in Russia is a direct result of Putin’s aggressive policy. Russian Internet is full of evidence of the irrational growth of the aggressively patriotic sentiments of an average Russian.
Here are the translations of some quotes from one extremely typical post made by a Russian film critic on Facebook. I quote not only the post but also some of the readers’ commentaries. I think this combination of the post with the comments presents a pretty accurate picture of the emotions of many Russians today:
“There is a girl among my acquaintances, an average Russian girl.
She works for 30,000 rubles a month (about $500. Prices for most of consumer goods in Russia are similar to American ones. S.Ts.)
She says she can make ends meet.
She is from a ‘good’ educated family, so called Russian ‘intelligencia”’.
Well, let’s say, her parents are musicians. Their apartment is full of books and so forth. Their discussions are interesting, not about food or consumer goods, about art, history, philosophy and so on.
Her grandfather and grandmother are also typical Soviet intellectuals; they used to live with their children in one room of a communal apartment. The walls of their room were covered with books.
Then everything had abruptly changed: Crimea, Syria and other ‘victories’.
The girl suddenly became a quite different person. She is starting to identify herself with the authorities and, in turn, she identifies the authorities with Russia.
Although her life is very difficult now, the girl maintains that the salaries and profits of government members do not concern her.
We don’t see each other any longer, but she wouldn’t listen if I tell her about killed children in Syria, anyway. I’m sure she doesn’t give a damn about things like that and has no compassion for anybody.
And that is the situation, gentlemen: the country is heading into abyss, and the young girl and her educated friends (not hoodlums and not cynics) are experiencing a strange enthusiasm, as the members of the Hitler Youth did once.
And I have no strength to swear any more, I’m almost crying.
O Lord, save and protect all of us, including those fools!”
Comment #1: “It is not necessary to save and protect them. On the contrary, bury them while they are young and then cry over their graves.”
Comment #2:“God often punishes naive fools. Dresden is an example.”
Comment #3:“Had only fools died in Dresden?”
Comment #4: “God very often punishes exactly naive fools”
Comment #5: “Lord will take care of “saving and protecting”, our concern is to deal with these people properly!
Comment #6: “Who needs pity? Do you need pity? One needs understanding, support. Why feel sorry for someone? The girl lives her life. She is not going into politics.”
Comment #7:“Living in mythology is the normal psychological self-defense.”
Comment #8: “It is not an isolated case, I see girls like that very often…. Sometimes I begin to think that it’s me who is not entirely normal, not them.”
Comment #9: “I think this country needs a period of purification. Since no one has repented for numerous crimes against humanity in the past. Unfortunately, only war can cleanse us. I do not want war, but these people are mad, and there are more and more signs of this.”
Comment #10: “Go fuck yourself! Kill yourself! What the fuck is a war? Does it cleanse? It is killing millions!!!”
Comment #11: “The problem is not in politics. It is in every person….. We are sinners.
“Comment #12: “Many people shut their ears! Never before I observed such a phenomenon. Maybe somebody put a poison in our drinking water?”
Comment #13: “This is fear and self-defense.”
Comment #14: “Klemperer in his book Language of the Third Reich described such girls from his German university. Exactly the same.”
Comment #15: “It is impossible to transform them back into human beings. Useless.”
Comment #16: “It is important to talk with them more. To scold them, if it is necessary.”
Comment # 17: “Only the tribunal could cure Germany of 33-45. There is no other way.”
Comment #18: “There are a lot of girls like this one. I personally know many of them. I spoke to a sales person in a pharmacy. Her monthly salary is 15.000 rubles ($250)! She has two higher educations, 4 children, one of them adopted. It is impossible to take them to a warm place abroad (Egypt or Turkey) in the winter now. She had one answer to all questions: Putin protects us from America.”
There are many similar posts on the Russian Internet. But here is one more quote from the Russian media. Everybody in Russia knows the name of Alexander Nevzorov, one of the favorite journalists. At the time of Perestroika he had a program on TV that was watched by the entire Russia. Life used to stop in Russia during the broadcast of his program.
This week Nevzorov wrote on the web site Snob.ru:
“Today we have the opportunity to observe the maturation of an abscess of national greatness. And it is clear that the Russians are determined to let it grow to extraordinary dimensions, and for this goal they are ready to make any sacrifices. To reject freedoms, rights, food, medicine, vacations, development of their country, well-being and technology. They are ready for poverty and isolation. For the complete break with civilization. They like being shut out from the world, sucking on their national pride and cherishing the precious abscess.”
