Statue Controversy

RUSSIANS CLASH OVER CONTROVERSIAL STATUES TO STALIN

By Stephen Wilson

 

MOSCOW -- At a conversational club I once asked my Russian students the question : 'How would you respond if the ghost of Stalin entered the room and asked for some tobacco to stoke his pipe?' One student told me she would give him tobacco, another that he would make him pay for the tobacco and another woman would beat him up. The diverse range of responses I received indicate how ambiguous the attitude of many Russians is towards Stalin. It is often complex, contradictory and absurd. While the government is supporting the erection of a new monument to the victims of repression this coming October, monuments to Stalin are mushrooming all over Russia as well as revisionist books which defend him. People are either blessing or cursing those statues. Fortunately, when someone curses a statue of Stalin the statue does not come to life and relentlessly pursue the person to death as in Pushkin's poem: 'The Bronze Horseman'. Well not quite! 

The Gulag grave hunter Yuri Dmitriev appears to have been arrested for his role in exposing the horror of Stalin's crimes . Dmitriev had been digging and burying the victims of repression in Karelia for 30 years . He discovered a mass graveyard in Sandarmakh which contained as many as 9000 victims. The victims had been stripped naked , thrust into special trucks and taken into a forest where they were shot in the back of the head and thrown into huge pits.

The police are even regarding the recent commemoration of victims as ' an unsanctioned gathering'!

There is no shortage of die-hard supporters of Stalin. They defend Stalin by stating he industrialized Russia, defeated Hitler and turned Russia into a great superpower. For instance, just open a current issue of the newspaper Zaftra and you can read the headlines: 'Glory to Stalin'. The leading article represents a signed statement of people calling for a recently taken down statue to Stalin to be restored . Some of the reasons for defending Stalin border on the banal. A book on sale at Dom Kniga titled 'The Stalinist Economic Victory' quotes a song of Vladimir Visotsky describing the era as: 'It was a time when prices were lower'. It is like saying: 'Cutting prices compensates for cutting throats.'

There seems to be a complete disregard of the basic facts of Russian history. Proponents of Stalin only want to hear what they want to hear. Even many supporters of socialism consider such apologists as dragging socialism into the mud. They would not even equate Stalin's regime with socialism. 

On the contrary, it is largely viewed as a disastrous distortion of socialism. In the wake of a spate in the arrest of journalists, people attending demonstrations, on going physical assaults on opponents as well as the execution of gays in Chechnya , many people fear a return to the years of Repression. It might not assume such a vast character as in Stalin's time, but it is not so such a distant and remote prospect as say twenty years ago. In deed, some Russians reckon it is already happening. Just open your eyes wider!