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. ---- I would say the percentage is probably pretty large among the poor and the working classes. Don't really know: I've never had a long conversation with one. The people I know are all middle-class Russians (or Armenians, or Moldovans, or whatever). But
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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 ---- I agree. The KPRF (not all of whose members are fans of Stalin, by the way -- it is a huge, umbrella organization that contains Stalinists, Social Democrats, market socialists,lobbyists for domestic industry and the agricultural sector, simple opportunists and so forth) is a very conservative organization. They have an alliance with the Russian Orthodox Church. Zyuganov reminds me of Buchanan. If I were a member of the Russian working class, by the way, I would definitely vote for the KPRF. The KPRF is the only party in Russia that actually represents the interests of the electorate (the Union of Right Forces represents big money, the completely irrelevant Yabloko represents the snobbism of the intelligentsia, and United Russia represents Putin and the State).
Friend of mine interviewed Stalin's grandson down in Georgia, said he was a really nice old guy who went on about the great victory in 1937 against the "Jewish-Trotskyist Internationalists." Stalin's great-granson, who is a kid, is named Iosif Venianivich Dzhugashvili. It's gotta be wierd growing bearing that moniker, in Georgia.