Stalin: A Biography

He was not forgotten, however, in society. Despite the revelations about his despotism, a residual nostalgia remained for Stalin and his period of rule. Surveys of popular opinion in 2000 confirmed this. When asked which period of twentieth-century history they regarded with greatest admiration, most respondents chose the Brezhnev years. Khrush-chëv’s rule attracted the approval of 30 per cent. The Revolution gained 28 and Nicholas II’s reign 18 per cent. Yet Stalin’s despotism, with 26 per cent, did not do badly. Adverse opinion about the despotism was still higher at 48 per cent, but the fact that over a quarter of respondents rejected the case against Stalinist rule was depressing to those in Russian public affairs who aspired to a transformation of social attitudes.¹⁴ Not everyone was kindly towards his memory. Families existed whose members solemnly toasted the health of ‘the American doctor’ Cheyne-Stokes on each anniversary of Stalin’s death. They were recalling the fatal breathing problem diagnosed at Blizhnyaya in March 1953. (In fact there had been two doctors, Cheyne and Stokes, and they were not Americans but Irishmen.)¹⁵ Indeed millions of Soviet citizens regularly spat on his memory while the politicians switched between public semi-denunciation and, at least in many cases, private admiration.

Abroad the decline in his reputation was precipitate and near-universal. The communist order collapsed in eastern Europe in 1989 and in every country no one could speak or write in defence of Stalin without incurring massive public displeasure. In the West most communist parties had long ago disavowed Stalinism. ‘Eurocommunism’ in Italy and Spain had been critical of both Lenin and Stalin since the 1970s. Western communist parties anyway fell apart with the dismantling of the USSR and it was no longer a matter of much interest what they thought about the Stalin period. Even in the People’s Republic of China, where a general respect for Stalin was formally maintained, spokesmen stressed the difficulties he had caused for China’s particular interests. In only one little country were many admirers of Stalin widely to be found. This was in his native Georgia, which regained its independence at New Year 1992. Georgians frequently forgot his maltreatment of their forebears. He was celebrated as a Georgian of worldwide fame who had tamed the Russians and given them a lesson in statecraft — and this was enough to save him from execration. Both his statues and the shrine of his childhood house stand untouched and venerated in Gori. Surviving relatives, especially grandchildren who did not know him personally, tend his cult. Georgia’s veteran communists praise his memory.

This is not a unique fate for homicidal leaders. Genghis Khan is revered in Mongolia. Hitler has admirers in Germany and other countries (including even Russia). People remember what they want in the circumstances in which they do the remembering; they always select and often invent their memories. In Stalin’s case those who think fondly of him — at least many of them — are reacting against the contempt shown towards the achievements of themselves or their parents before 1953. Like Putin, they want to remove the taint on the name of their families. They are also reacting against the unpleasantness of their situation in Russia after communism. They feel that Stalin gave them pride, order and predictability; they overlook the fact that his rule was characterised by systematic oppression. His era has become a reassuring fiction for those individuals and groups who seek a myth for life in the present. Even many persons whose forebears were shot or imprisoned on Stalin’s orders have taken comfort in fairy stories about a ruler who made a few mistakes but usually got the basic direction of state policy right.

This is evident to anyone who visits Moscow. Down from Red Square by the side of the Manège there is a building which used to be the Lenin Museum. In the early 1990s it became a favourite gathering place for assorted kinds of Stalinist. Passers-by could listen to elderly Russians denouncing everything that had happened in the country since 1953. Individuals sold newspapers rejecting the entire course of history from Khrushchëv to Yeltsin. (Mingling with the Stalinists were still odder individuals advertising herbal cures for AIDS.) Their ideas were a jumble. The Stalinists hate Jews, freemasons and Americans. They support Russian nationalism while advocating the restoration of a multinational state. They hymn social sacrifice. They are a pathetic bunch, steeped in nostalgia, and the police refrain from arresting them even though their wild statements contravene the Russian 1993 Constitution.