Hacker News Reader

Comment by aebtebeten | Hacker News Reader

> Putin himself seems to deplore Stalin

What makes you think that? I had the impression he is explicitly pro-Stalin.

(Pugacheva denounced the SMO last year, many others decamped* for Israel, and there are a few artists who stayed despite being no longer in favour and are filming clips with their phones, but as far as I can tell hi budget videos are —and have been— pretty synonymous with toeing the Kremlin line)

* the first Новогодний Голубой огонек after the invasion had to pad out the audience with military members; I had been assuming that was because either too many artists (obviously сердючка included) were elsewhere or because they had refused to guarantee their support live on-air. Haven't watched this years' yet.

View on HN

> What makes you think that?

Well, he's said so.

Works for me: do you remember where?

(I can easily believe Putin would be happy to join in the Immortal Regiment parade while casting shade on the then-leader. Do any of the "Man Like Putin" lyrics refer to Stalin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUh9pThGdm4 — my russian isn't good enough to tell if the various contrasts have referents or not...)

Edit: upon reflection, if Putin were not behind the rehabilitation of Stalin, then who is?

Perhaps I'm wrong - I've just done a little search.

Firstly, it's Lenin that he blames for Ukrainian autonomy - not Stalin. Secondly, Putin has evidently said that Stalin was a mixed blessing; he industrialized the Russian economy, and he defeated the Nazis, but the repression and murder he caused were wrong.

""The positives that undoubtedly existed were achieved at an unacceptable price. Repressions did take place. This is a fact. Millions of our fellow citizens suffered from them," Putin said.

"Such a way of running a state, of achieving results is unacceptable, this is impossible. We have not only lived through the personality cult but also witnessed mass crimes against our own nation."

So, apologies for misinformation.

Stalin needed suppression, in 2009 Putin did not need it. As cracks starts to appear in Russia's society, we hear state television increasingly refer to Stalin in a positive way. The last years, access to Soviet historic places and sources have been closed down for researchers. History books are rewritten, militarism is reintroduced for children (already Kindergarten age).

Everything is a means to an end in a dictatorship, be it people, resources or truth. Times have changed, social contract has been broken. What lies ahead is repression, so Stalin needs a new dress.

So you are not wrong, but you should not mistake it as an ideological sincere stance.

> The last years, access to Soviet historic places and sources have been closed down for researchers.

I think you are talking specifically about the Memorial Project, that was documenting victims of Stalin's terror, and was dissolved by a Moscow judge in 2022?

I remember they were documenting the genocide of Finnish Ingrians among other Soviet crimes.

> What lies ahead is repression, so Stalin needs a new dress.

I guess one metric of repression is what parties are represented in a legislative assembly.

For instance, looking at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1932_German_federal_e...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_elec...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1933_German_parliamen...

things are still looking healthy in Mar 33 (my metric: no party has more delegates than all the other parties combined; others will obviously use different metrics) but Nov 33 is completely out of hand.

Looking at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Duma#Latest_election

the Duma at least has more than two parties, but isn't healthy by my metric. (the same occurs in the upper house)

When more repression arrives, either we'll see a Duma that's nearly 100% "ER and friends", or we'll see a Duma with the same parties but so ineffective that if Putin's horse were elected (it could easily commute from an office in the Moscow Manège?) it wouldn't be any worse than any other deputy.

Your metric is too simplistic. I'm not an expert in 1933 German politics, but the Russian state is quite involved in engineering the appearance of political choice. The FSB and friends ("siloviki") do hands-on screening of candidates from KPRF, LDPR, etc. and coercing of voters (using the "administrative resource" as they call it) and fabricating election results. The Duma has been nearly 100% ER and friends for a very long time now - representatives ("deputies") who don't fall in line are ejected, prosecuted, and sent to prison. The same thing happens with gubernatorial elections (which are a much more obvious sham as they don't have even an appearance of being binding) and local assembly elections as needed (sometimes leading to hilarious/tragic results as the FSB realizes that a particular assembly has gotten too independent).

Thanks, and serendipitously, that also explains both the absent mayor and the general hilarious/tragic atmosphere of petty larceny in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1J5lUKnD4I ...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com