Poll lauds Stalin on anniversary

[emad]

AP in Moscow
Saturday March 5, 2005
The Guardian

As today marks the 52nd anniversary of the death of Josef Stalin, a poll has found that one in two Russians views the Soviet dictator in a positive light.

In a nationwide poll by the VTsIOM agency, 50% said that their view of the role Stalin played in Russian history was undoubtedly positive or probably positive; 37% said they viewed Stalin's role as undoubtedly or probably negative; and 13% were undecided. Some 42% of the 1,600 respondents said they wanted or would not object to having a leader like Stalin today. A total of 52% objected to the idea; the rest were undecided.

Under the rule of the Communist party, Stalin helped turn the Soviet Union into an industrialised superpower, and rallied the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler's invasion, but was responsible for the deaths of millions of his citizens, and those of east European countries, through starvation, execution, forced labour, and war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1431072,00.html

[Igel]

1. I've also seen stats (decades back, now) that the pace of

industrialization in 1913 in Russia wasn't matched until the mid-30s, and that it was increasing. What its economy would have done after WWI, during the Depression, if Russia had entered WWII early instead of divvying up Poland, and without Cold War spending ... is anyone's guess.

But it's always hard to compare what happened against what might have. "ankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

On the other hand, the elderly and the nationalists see positive traits in Stalin: making the USSR a superpower, and a batya 'father' that fed and clothed and housed them for so long. Sacrificing millions is ok, as long as national pride and one's tummy are both satisfied. (Stalin didn't like Dostoevsky; the latter's Grand Inquisitor fits him rather too well.) Many deny the purges occurred, or took so many lives--how could they possibly be duped? And some just fell for the Stockholm syndrome: I must deserve the daily beatings.

I had an elderly exchange professor who went all weepy when she said how she had heard the news of Stalin's death, and stood in line for many hours to see his bier for a few seconds. She mutely nodded, eyes glazed over, when a student listed all the bad things Stalin did; when the student was done, the professor nodded agreement, simultaneously saying that Stalin was a great leader.