Chris is in a better position to answer that question than those of us who love in the US, but I suspect that Stalin nostalgia derives from two different sources: one source being the desire for order, for a return to the days when the Soviet Union was a superpower. And the other source being the desire to return to a more egalitarian society. Many of today's Stalin fans do seem to be "browns" who admire him for his having governed with an iron hand but I think that for a lot of people in Russia, the nostalgia for Stalin represents a protest of the politics of the last decade, in which Russian leaders have sought to break up the Soviet welfare state, and replace it with a form of capitalism. No doubt, many Russians are nostalgic for Stalin on both grounds.
Jim F.
On Thu, 6 Mar 2003 07:06:27 -0800 (PST) andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > I notice that political analyst Markov goes to great
> > lengths to ascribe this
> > "Stalin nostalgia" to patriotism, desire for a
> > better history, national
> > pride, the 'unscrupulousness of modern politicians',
> > the desire for
> > 'independent policies' - anything at all EXCEPT a
> > hatred of capitalism and a
> > preference for socialism. The words 'socialism' and
> > 'communism' and their
> > derivatives and synonyms are completely absent from
> > Markov's musings.
> >
> > LP
>
> Although Russians and ex-FSUers (the Balkan states
> apart) respond favorably in polls to words like
> "socialism" and "communism," it's not clear that this
> means anything much more than support for a fairly
> egalitarian welfare state. The ideals of democratic
> workers' control of production and investment and an
> end to exploitation are probably no more widely shared
> in the FSU than in many European countries, that is to
> saym only by a small percebtage of the population,
> though nauturally a much larger percentage than here.
>
>
> Moreover the fans of Stalin, both in the old FSU and
> today, are much more committed to a sort of xenophobic
> (and antisemitic) patriotic (Soviet) authoritarian
> nationalism than anything that most people in the West
> who advocate socialism or communism would recognize.
> Admiration for Stalin is a sign of reactionary
> politics in the FSU, a yearning for the old days when
> there was Order. It's a position pretty close in some
> ways to American working class support for the
> Christian right. It aint revolutionary!
>
> jks
>
>
>
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