February 25, 2006
For my pal Kashei [posted by Allah]
Remember that article a few months ago about abortions in Russia exceeding the number of live births?
Well, maybe it's for the best:
In the past decade, 200 books and films about Stalin, some eulogies, have appeared. Polls show that 18 per cent of Russians believe he was their best leader since 1917, while almost 50 per cent view him in a positive or very positive light....He is popular among the young, say pollsters, mainly because of rising nationalism, the result of the humiliation of Russia's diminished place in the world.
Volgograd University students lauded Stalin on everything from collectivisation, the agricultural policy that resulted in the deaths of millions through famine, to his supposed love for human rights.
"To change a weak country into the world's greatest power, we had to collectivise," said Andrei Ivanov, a history student. "We were able to produce tractor factories and to win the war."
Students insist Stalin's crimes were exaggerated by Khrushchev to avenge the death of his son, Leonid, whom they believed was executed during the war for passing secrets to the Nazis - a rumour that has long been debunked.
Khrushchev's great-granddaughter commemorates his "secret speech" with an op-ed on the great flaw in the Russian character.
UPDATE: Let's hurry it up with those abortions, 'kay?
Russian cinemagoers are flocking to see an unlikely tale of forbidden love between the late Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, and a married woman whom he calls "Lizzie" - otherwise known as Queen Elizabeth II....Posted by Allahpundit at February 25, 2006 05:19 PM | TrackBackThe success of the film demonstrates a shift in Russians' view of Brezhnev, who was long an object of derision, not least because of his penchant for kissing male foreign leaders. His 18 years at the top, which ended with his death in 1982, are increasingly viewed as an era of stability and prosperity compared with the chaos of the present day.
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Sad but to be honest not that surprising either. Russia has had no luck in the last few hundred years going from a Tsarist autocracy to a weak provisional government to authoritarian socialiasm (I refuse to call it communist as it was not) to a sort of democracy under Yetsin.
1. Under Stalin the USSR grew from being a weak power defeated by Poland in 1921 to an industrial country that was able to finally defeat the Third Reich. Stalin was a brutal bastard and as paranoid as is possible but Lenin before him was no better.
2. Under Stalin the USSR became a quasi imperial country with control over Eastern Europe and with huge influence in Asia and the Middle East. He built Russia into a superpower.
3. The changeover to democracy has not done the Russian people that much. Under A.S work was guaranteed along with education, health care etc. Democracy and market capitalism has not brought greater prosperity nor further emancipation. The Russian armed forces are a joke where they were once feared across Western Europe and the country has its very own terrorist problem.
Stalin was evil incarnate (in my opinion worse than Hitler) but what the Russian people were promised in 1991 hasn't happend and people can remember the good points of Stalin's rule.
Posted by: Nick at February 25, 2006 05:46 PMoh happy day...delighted to see Allah back, I missed the guy
anyway that is depressing about that poll, reminds me of the PJ o'Rourke line about "the idiot stepchild of Western Civilization""
has Karol or Allah read "In the Court of the Red Tsar"? beggars and buggers belief!
Posted by: ace massive at February 25, 2006 06:48 PMYou also have to remember that dissidents, and the victims of pogroms, gulags and house arrest were small compared to those who had food, work and education. Instability will cause people to hark back fondly to all sorts of awfulness. The first lesson of the week for children in the USSR was "peace", in which, for example, the veteran of WW2 would come in to talk about what they did, why it was important, etc. I think the point of this lesson was to make people feel like a vital part of society. Some writer remembers how he felt sorry for those people not born into the USSR when he was at school.
Posted by: bryan at February 26, 2006 01:03 AM"A fatal desire for order?" How about a non-fatal desire for food? Democracy in Russia was doomed from the start when Yeltsin forged alliances with the "oligarchs" (the Russian Mafia) to create a kleptocracy of enormous proportions. The degree of economic dislocation (abject poverty) and hardship experienced by ordinary Russians at this time cannot be overestimated. I think the illusion of at least a subsistance way of life under Putin is what's driving the desire for "order" in Russia.
Individually, Russians can be wonderful people. I married one so I know! ;-). But their society is hopeless. My wife returned there a year or so ago to visit family, and had this remarkable insight when I asked her how things were there: "Outside immediate family everybody hates and mistrusts everyone else, and EVERYONE hates and mistrusts the Government."
Not exactly good soil to plant a new, budding democracy.
Posted by: Redhand at February 26, 2006 10:33 AM
