Josefs ghosts

History is a political tool to settle scores in the present. The return of Josef Stalin to Moscows Kurskaya Metro station is part of a trend: Vladimir Putins Russia rehabilitating Stalin. This reverses the opening up that began not after the Soviet break-up,but in 1986,when Gorbachevs glasnost mid-wifed the rebirth of history in a land which had institutionalised collective forgetting. Debates questioning the Soviet version of history were being sponsored by the Kremlin itself. And yet,Stalin is popular on the Russian street. While the chaos of the Yeltsin era contributed to Putins revival of the Soviet past,theres more to it.

At the heart of it lies geopolitics. After the Soviet collapse,Russia was a diminished state. Putin realised how past grandeur could make Russians feel big again,along with their newfound economic might from oil and gas. Medvedevs recent threat to Ukraine about gas,near-routine clashes between Moscow and Kiev over gas supply and price,and last years war with Georgia show how Russias statist reinvention of its past with a desire to regain old spheres of influence is wedded to the geopolitical fallout of oil.

But what Russia thinks or does impacts not just its neighbourhood. As Poland demands an apology from Putin for the 1940 Katyn massacre by the Soviets,and Ukraine wants to politically and economically integrate with the West,its clear that Russia continues to define Eastern Europes past and present. One could have left Russia to whatever image of itself it cherishes,if it were not for Stalins victim states. Through them the continuing tussle over history impacts the European and global economy,as well as vitiating a volatile Central Asia.