Putin's Russia Calls Stalin Out Of The Grave As A War Ally

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MOSCOW – As Russia enters the second year of its war against Ukraine, fans of Joseph Stalin are enjoying a renewed rapprochement with the Kremlin.

Hundreds of Stalinists, who descended on Red Square on Sunday to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet dictator’s death, filled with bravery and admiration for a man responsible for mass executions, a network of labor camps and forced famine.

But that wasn’t a side of the dictator that was prominent in the minds of those who turned up to commemorate him.

“Stalin resisted Nazism,” Maxim, a 19-year-old medical student in a blue wool cap who, like others interviewed for this article, declined to give his last name, told POLITICO. “And now our current president has led the charge to take it back.”

Irina, a 35-year-old market vendor, brought a bouquet of red carnations to lay at Stalin’s tomb in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. When President Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine on February 24 last year, a triumphant Irina posted a picture of the hammer and sickle on Instagram. “That symbol said it all to me.”

Outside the mausoleum of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin in Red Square, longtime Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told journalists that Putin could learn “lessons” from Stalin: “It’s time to take action and fight seriously. “

But as Stalin’s reputation undergoes this rehabilitation, those dedicated to documenting the mass oppression of the Soviet era have felt the full force of the state apparatus deployed against them.

Across Red Square, in Moscow’s northeastern Basmanny district, about two dozen people gathered outside a faded yellow four-story building on Sunday. They came to put up a plaque commemorating the site as the last home of Vladimir Maslow, an economist accused of spying for Poland in a fabricated case and being shot at the height of Stalin’s Great Purge. One of the attendees wore an olive green jacket adorned with a peace dove — a risky political statement in Putin’s Russia.

The Last Address campaign, which places memorial plaques on the former homes of victims of Soviet oppression, is one of the few projects left after a ruthless purge of Russia’s most established human rights groups – Memorial, the Sakharov Center and Moscow All Helsinki groups had to close.

Their loosely organized volunteers, armed with drills and step stools to attach the panels to facades, are spared for the time being. But they face growing hurdles: getting the required unanimous consent from the occupants of a given building is harder to get; even plaques were removed.

“People have become more cautious, afraid that acknowledging the dark episodes of the past will be taken as a nod to what is happening today,” said volunteer Mikhail Sheinker. “In times like these, past and present converge until they almost merge.”

The day Stalin’s death was announced – March 6, 1953 – is burned into Sheinker’s memory: “I was four at the time and I was making the usual row, but my mother told me to be quiet out of respect.”

Supporters of the Russian Communist Party march to lay flowers at the grave of late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin | Alexander Nemenov/AFP via Getty Images

Today, in wartime Russia, the specter of Stalin could again be used to silence dissent.

On Sunday, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency published an opinion piece headlined “Stalin is a weapon in the struggle between Russia and the West,” arguing that criticizing Stalin is “not only anti-Soviet but also anti-Russian, aimed at division and defeat Russia.”

But while World War II – which Russians refer to as “the Great Patriotic War” – continues to be a central theme of Putin’s rhetoric when it comes to his invasion of Ukraine, the president sees himself more as a successor to the tsars than as a Soviet leader . Accordingly, the state media paid relatively little attention to the 70th anniversary of Stalin’s death.

Former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov said it was because Stalin was still too divisive and Russia’s ruling elite was reluctant to commit to any particular ideology. But “if Russia will suffer further setbacks [in Ukraine]Stalin will become a main topic,” Markov wrote on Telegram.

Peculiar bedfellows

The alliance between Putin’s Kremlin and revanchist communists is uncertain.

In Russia’s lower house, the State Duma, the Communist Party sticks closely to the Kremlin line – but at the regional level its members are sometimes less disciplined.

Last month, Mikhail Abdalkin, a communist lawmaker in the Samara region, published a Video of himself listening to Putin’s annual address to the entire ruling elite with noodles in his ears. It was an allusion to a Russian idiom, “hanging noodles on one’s ears,” which refers to being taken away or being fed nonsense.

A supporter of the Russian Communist Party holds a portrait of the late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

Last week Abdalkin said he was charged with discrediting Russian forces, the case is due to be heard on March 7. If convicted, Abdalkin could face a fine.

In Red Square on Sunday, some communist supporters voluntarily criticized Putin – but not his war against Ukraine.

“Stalin is criticized for having blood on his hands. But what about Putin’s politics? Outside of the big cities, people have to walk hundreds of miles on muddy roads to get medical care,” said Alexander, a retiree in his 60s.