Russia’s historical amnesia

Laying flowers and wreaths to Stalin's grave at Kremlin wall. Photo: Vladimir Fedorenko (CC) commons.wikimedia.org

The anniversary of this event witnessed parades of soldiers throughout the city centre, followed by a massive fireworks display in the evening. Nevskiy Prospekt, the main street in St Petersburg’s historical centre, was decorated with large banners, on which were written “1944-2019,” “1941-1944,” and “900 days, 900 nights”. Red flags hung along the sides of the kilometre-long avenue, a constant reminder of the Soviet victory. It was a cause to celebrate, similar to the annual Victory Day celebrations in St Petersburg and Moscow that see comparable decorations, parades and fireworks.

Stalin’s victory

These celebrations are part of a long-established tradition of glorifying Soviet Russia’s deeds in the Second World War, ignoring the crimes committed by their leaders against their own people. There was no mention of the fact that, throughout much of the St Petersburg siege, Stalin’s NKVD, the predecessor to the KGB, continued to arrest and imprison starving residents. In fact, rather than undertaking all possible efforts to evacuate Leningraders, many of the city’s residents were amongst the 2.5 million Soviet citizens imprisoned in the Soviet Gulag system during the war. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote in the Gulag Archipelago that, on May 9th 1945 when he heard about the Soviet Union’s victory over Germany in his prison cell, that “this victory was not for us. It was Stalin’s victory.”

Solzhenitsyn foresaw the captivity and horrors of the Stalin system, the double-edged sword that the Soviet victory represented: in persistently commemorating and glorifying the victory of the war, Russia, today, is validating a policy of historical amnesia, using an imbalanced narrative of the war for political reasons. Stalin is an ever-reoccurring motive in Russian society. Stalin’s image is sold on coffee mugs, playing cards and calendars for tourists and locals. Stalin’s legacy, however, is not confined to tourist shops. According to the Lavada Research Centre in Moscow, in 2017, 32 per cent of Russians looked upon Stalin “with respect,” four per cent “with admiration,” and ten per cent with “sympathetic views”; whereas only 21 per cent disliked or feared the dictator. Twenty-two per cent claimed to be “indifferent.”

How can we understand how Stalin, one of history’s most notorious dictators, is not only tolerated, but oftentimes defended? Why were his wrongdoings re-written and his memory honoured in present-day Russia? Is this a failureof history? Who or what is fanning the flames of this modern Stalin-cult? Can this really be considered, as some historians have argued, a rehabilitation of Stalinism?

Firstly, in order to understand this phenomenon, it is important to briefly analyse the patterns of Russia’s historical memory, both during the Soviet Union and after its collapse, thus allowing us to understand the context in which Stalin remains a highly regarded figure. Secondly, a vital part of the Russian national consciousness has risen from the myth of victory in the Great Patriotic War (the Second World War), in which Stalin has obtained an almost god-like status for defeating Nazi Germany. Further, it is crucial to look at how and why Stalin, as the victor, is embodied in the Russian consciousness, while Stalin as the repressor is not. Lastly, it is necessary to examine how and why the current Putin regime promotes an inaccurate memory of Stalin and Stalinism, thereby shaping the modern national consciousness from the top down, and thus preventing the emergence of a democratically based revision of Stalin and Stalinism in the Russian Federation.

Historical memory

Stalin remains one of the most popular and respected rulers in Russian history, in what historian Dmitry Shlapentokh, who has written a number of books on the Soviet Union and Russia, has termed “Stalin-Mania.” His measures that led to the repression and murder of millions of people have nearly disappeared from the Russian national consciousness, which is tied to its historical collective memory. Historical memory is the use of real or imagined histories, which, after being bended and shaped to reflect a desired truth, constitute the collective memory and identity of a society. Russia’s historical memory has done just that: it has divided the good from the bad, honouring the benefits Stalin brought to Russian/Soviet society, whilst forgetting or re-imagining the trials, tribulations and terror of his regime. The memory of Stalin is no longer the memory of repressions, but rather the victory of the Second World War, the Soviet Union’s rapid industrialisation, and making Russia into a major global power. As the Russian sociologist and director of the Levada Centre in Moscow, Lev Gudkov, writes: “the more the memory of Stalinist repression fades, the more public opinion turns in the dictator’s favour”.

Stalin has not been subject to an historical Vergangenheitsbewältigung (the process of coming to terms with one’s past), in which he and his deeds have been the subject of a truth-oriented discourse among the broader Soviet or Russian society. Nikita Khrushchev’s 1958 secret speech was the first attempt in coming to terms with Stalinist terror. However, after Leonid Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev as Soviet leader, any discussion of Stalin’s crimes disappeared. It was not until the mid-1980s under Mikhail Gorbachev that Stalinist terror was again discussed. Nevertheless, neither in the Soviet Union nor in post-Soviet Russia has there been any resemblance of truth and reconciliation commissions as seen in other countries where terror has been committed.

Nothing in Russia’s history symbolises Stalin’s legacy better than the Russian victory in the Second World War. For most Russians the victory was the most important event of the 20th century. According to opinion polls, over three-quarters of those asked agree that the Great Patriotic War has first-rate importance for Russia. The Great Patriotic War, even more than Stalin, is present in Russian daily modern life. This can be seen in the many war films, daily television shows, Victory Day ribbons, parades and, most recently, the 75th anniversary of the end of the Siege of Leningrad. Furthermore, Soviet films, modern television programmes and Russian films dealing with the war consist of six to eight per cent of daily airtime on Russian television today, leading Swiss journalist and political commentator Felix Münger to say that “as a consequence of the current state propaganda and the many war films, which are played from the early morning until late in the night on Russian television, Stalin’s crimes fade into the background of many Russian’s consciousness. Despite his leadership of the war oftentimes being far from professional, Stalin is regarded by many primarily as a successful commander-in-chief and manager.”

Positive reference point

In a 2003 poll taken just after Vladimir Putin came to power, 87 per cent of people said the Great Patriotic War was the event in history that makes them feel most proud. Russian sociologist Led Gudkov writes that “the victory of 1945 is not simply ‘the central semantic knot of Soviet history’ spanning from the 1917 October Revolution to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but, in fact, is ‘the only positive reference point for the national consciousness of the post-Soviet society.’” Problematically, this “positive reference point” for Russia’s national consciousness ignores much of the negativememories connected to Stalin’s terror.

Despite the significant public consensus on the importance of the Great Patriotic War in Russia, there is no agreement whatsoever on the importance, or even the historical factuality, of Stalin’s terror before, during and after the war. The destitution of everyday life during the war, the imprisonment and killing of soldiers and citizens, and the untimely evacuation of Leningrad do not belong to the narrative of the war. Today, the memory of the war is only the memory of victory.

Australian historian Maria Tumarkin contends that the “triumphant narrative of the war acts as a smokescreen for other kind of memories of the regime as well as wrapping a protective shield around the figure of Stalin … the more the figure of Stalin is associated with the war the weaker its links appear to be with the history of political terror and mass repressions.” There has been governmental pushback in recognising and condemning the Stalinist crimes, such as the persecution of Memorial, a Russian NGO which works to uncover the totalitarian past. Historic truth is irritating for the victorious narrative, writes Carnegie fellow Maria Lipman, as “for all Stalin’s mistakes and misdeeds, the most important thing is that under his leadership the Soviet people won the Great Patriotic War.” Stalin’s crimes are inconvenient for Russia’s memory of victory.

Stalin under Putinism

There is also a critical dimension of modern Stalinism yet to be analysed, namely, that of Putin’s dissemination and manipulation of Stalinism. Russian-American political scientist Nina Krushcheva views “Russia’s current infatuation with Stalinism (and its approval of Putinism)” as “a reflection of post-socialist despair – moral, material, physical”. As many historians have argued (including the author of this article), this post-Soviet despair, combined with the turmoil of the 1990s, drove Russians to willingly accept and support a non-democratic, albeit stable, political system. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the loss of one’s national identity, combined with almost a decade of economic turmoil, it is understandable why many Russians look back to the past with nostalgia. It is within this context that Putin has manipulated the past, rehabilitating a Stalinist-like political system to appease the Russian people while securing his own position at the top of the authoritarian state.

The regime under Putin utilises the memories of the war and of Stalin to fill an identity vacuum that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin grasps at the positive memories of the war and transforms them into a narrative he can use, changing bottom-up support into top-down political function. The idea of the “Great” – especially that of the Stalin-era – is employed as a form of systematic state politics of memory in which Stalin and Stalinism are returning to modern Russia, but Stalin’s role is shaped, manipulated and engineered to build pride.

The memories of the war are also exploited to legitimise a centralised and repressive social order. They give meaning and self-understanding to a society unable to cope with the turbulent societal and economic changes following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In manipulating the memories of victory, unity and greatness – moments of national mobilisation – the Russian authorities are able to unite the society behind these ideas of greatness and, ultimately, the legitimacy of authoritarian rule. Thus, in controlling the historical narrative, Putin is able to further justify his authoritarian and anti-democratic regime.

Dissenting from the official narrative is becoming more difficult and dangerous. In 2014 Putin signed the “anti-Nazi laws” into effect. The law against the rehabilitation of Nazism legally protects the truth of the Soviet Union’s deeds during the Second World War, making it possible for courts to punish anyone who spreads “false information” about the Soviet Union during the war, or who desecrates the memory or symbols of the war, such as referring to collaboration or vandalising statues. Those convicted could face fines and even jail time. A singular historical account has become law, while debating the historical facts has become a punishable offense.

In painting Stalin as a successful and honourable leader, Putin has paved the way for the use of Stalin’s image and memory as a vehicle for political memory manipulation in modern Russia. Historical fact has little chance against Putin’s altered history, whichis propagated in nearly all spheres of society: in cinema, the media, the internet, literature, schools, NGOs, museums, the army, national holidays, annual commemorative events, and political demagogy. Contemporary Russia’s entire understanding of history has been virtually shaped by ideology, politics and propaganda. Whereas Stalin won the war against Nazi Germany, Putin’s Russia has won the war against memory.

A nation doomed to forget

Presently, Russia is treading a very dangerous line. The propagation of alternate or softer histories prevents Russia, its people, the victims and their families from properly coming to terms with the past. Reconciliation is impossible without truth. Healing is impossible without reconciliation.

A political system that systematically denies historical truth for its own benefit, that finds its legitimacy in an inaccurate past and that assumes similarities with a Stalinist and/or terror based totalitarian regime is a political system bound to repeat the very same mistakes of the past. Sarah Mendelson and Theodore Gerber, writing in Foreign Affairs in 2006 on the relationship between young Russians and their former dictator Joseph Stalin, lamented that as “long as young Russians remain ignorant about or have positive feelings toward a murderous dictator who institutionalised terror throughout their country, they are unlikely to mobilise behind calls for greater justice, human rights, or transparency—factors critical to Russia’s transformation into a modern democratic society”. In the 13 years since their article, few of those who lived through the Stalin years remain alive today. The memory of Stalin’s crimes disappears with them.

The Russian public, especially those who believe in the importance of democratic institutions, must come to understand that honouring Stalin’s memory is equal to condoning his actions – actions that are being emulated, or at least endorsed, by Putin today. A political system that promotes militarised spectacles which glorify war is a system that is not likely to accept any recognition or reconciliation of the past. With Putin losing some popularity (according to the Carnegie Moscow Center, Putin’s ratings fell to 68 per cent in July 2019, down from the 82 per cent May 2018), and with a number of important Second World War anniversaries on the horizon, this political narrative is likely to become a key tool in reinforcing Putin’s domestic image. If the past number of years is any indication, Russia’s historical amnesia will ceaselessly provide a usable narrative for Putin and his ever-intensifying authoritarian politics.

Joshua Kroeker is an historian and political scientist, holding degrees from the University of British Columbia in Canada and Heidelberg University in Germany. He is currently undertaking his doctoral study at Heidelberg University, and further study at St Petersburg State University, Russia, where he resides. He specialises in modern Russian and Ukrainian history and politics.

history, Russia, Stalin