Great patriots

Through the late 8217;70s and 8217;80s, news used to regularly emerge from the Soviet Union that the leadership had, in its wisdom, decided to 8220;rehabilitate8221; some writer, politician, or ordinary citizen who had been banned, tried, or shot by Stalin. It was doubly ironic, thus, when news broke that new Russian teachers8217; manuals are beginning to attempt a similar rehabilitation with Stalin. Stalin, history students in middle school will be told, was a rational man, dealing with a difficult situation; and he did what he had to in order to ensure Russia8217;s modernisation.

The admiration of the apparatchiki who run Russia 8212; and especially that of the head apparatchik, ex-KGB officer, former president, current prime minister and de facto leader Vladimir Putin 8212; for the worst aspects of Russia8217;s Soviet past has long been known. And none of this is because the 8220;Russian temperament8221; admires 8220;strong leadership8221; either 8212; it is a normal reaction to the cataclysmic loss of power and extraordinary instability that Russia dealt with during the Yeltsin years. Yet every fresh sign of Putin8217;s intentions is worrying; and this is more worrying than most.

For the 50 years since he died and Khrushchev told a party meeting about his crimes, Stalin has been viewed by the mainstream Russian leadership alternately as an aberration, as monstrous, as excessive, or something not to be talked about, like a crazy uncle in the attic. This is because even the Communist Party recognised that in the pursuit of their vision, 20 million dead were too many, and that Stalin was deeply irrational if he thought it wasn8217;t. Putin refuses to allow Russia to feel guilt 8212; or anything but pride 8212; about its dark past. He refuses to accept that anything 8212; least of all Stalin8217;s home, Georgia 8212; can stand between Russia and its lost Stalinist glory. Already textbooks have told students that 8220;democratisation was not an option8221; during Stalin8217;s period, because of external threats. Perhaps the lessons that Russia is learning from its history are the wrong ones.