Soviet words and deeds

First came the word and the word was Soviet. Soviet is the name of a hotel that stands on the left-hand side of Leningrad Prospect in Moscow.

First came the word and the word was Soviet. Soviet is the name of a hotel that stands on the left-hand side of Leningrad Prospect in Moscow. On the other side stands a kebab house,which had long earned the nickname Anti-Sovietnot because its clientele or kebabs were subversive but because of its position: directly opposite the Soviet.

Last month the owners of the café decided to make a brand out of the Soviet-era joke and put up a sign Anti-Soviet. But they chose the wrong moment and inadvertently caused a political scandal which speaks volumes about Russia.

On September 7th the Moscow union of pensioners and veterans,a name that oddly unites those who fought in the war with those who served as commissars,guards in the Gulag and secret policemen,complained to the local authority about the inappropriate political pun and urged that the name be changed in order not to irritate those who respect the Soviet period in our history. The letter was signed by Vladimir Dolgikh,an 84-year-old former Communist-party boss. The local authority,in the person of Oleg Mitvol,a PR-hungry bureaucrat,got into the act,threatening the owners and making them change the anti-Soviet sign.

This Gogol-esque incident prompted a blistering article from Alexander Podrabinek,a journalist and former Soviet dissident. Mr Podrabinek,who exposed punitive psychiatry in Soviet days and had served time for anti-Soviet propaganda,attacked the veterans for trying to justify the Soviet past: bloody,mendacious and shameful,he said. Mr Podrabineks argument had been made by writers before,including by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago. But after years of state-sponsored nostalgia for the Soviet past which included portraying Stalin as an effective manager,the article sounded like heresy. Much worse,it was treated as heresy by Nashi Ours,a thuggish youth movement conceived and protected by the Kremlin. The thugs picketed Mr Podrabineks house,demanding that he apologise to the veterans they had brought some along or leave the country for good.

The scandal snowballed. Journalists and human-rights activists protested. Bernard Kouchner,the French foreign minister,offered protection for Mr Podrabinek. Vladimir Putin,the prime minister,said both sides were to blame. Ella Pamfilova,the Kremlins human-rights ombudswoman,denounced the Nashi thugs and was immediately criticised by members of the ruling United Russia party.

After several weeks of scandal and fury,Nashi seems to have been called off by its masters,at least for now. But its hate campaign with a whiff of anti-Semitism 60 per cent of those who signed a letter in support of Podrabinek have Jewish names,claimed one of Russias new ideologues was more than just a ghost of the Soviet era. It seems a harbinger of restoration.

The resurrection of Soviet symbols began after Mr Putin came to power as president and ordered the reintroduction of the rejected Soviet national anthem,with new lyrics. Ten years on,the old Stalinist words adorn the walls of a reconstructed metro station in central Moscow. We were raised by Stalinhe inspired our labour and deeds. The line now rings just as true today.

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Until recently,the restoration of the Soviet past was mainly symbolic and stylistic. The cynical,commercially-aware Kremlin ideologues winked and nodded,implying that these things were simply a cover that helped them modernise the country. But,as some recent events show,what used to be symbols are now becoming facts. In Archangel,in the north of Russia,investigators opened a criminal case against a historian who was collecting material about ethnic Germans who vanished in the Gulag.

Where history starts,modern politics soon follows. The local elections in Russia on October 11th were Soviet in substance as well as style. The Soviet Union used to imitate elections with one candidate to chose from and a turnout of 98 per cent. Rigging elections has long been common in Russia too,but it has never been so brazen. In Moscow independent candidates were simply not registered and a damning report by Boris Nemtsov,an opposition politician,about corruption in Moscow received almost no public attention.

United Russia,Mr Putins party,got nearly 70 per cent of the votes an exit poll showed 45 per cent whereas the Communists,the only other party to clear the threshold for winning seats,got 13 per cent 18 per cent according to exit polls. There were reports of migrants from Central Asia being bussed around Moscow,casting multiple votes.

Even Russias tamed and loyal opposition balked,staging a walkout of the national parliament in protest. They threatened demonstrations and demanded a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev. The president,who had promised fair and competitive elections and who had rushed to congratulate United Russia on its splendid victory,was too busy to meet them. Crisis is not in the Soviet vocabulary.

The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009