--- joanna bujes <jbujes at covad.net> wrote:
> Why was he in constant physical pain?
>
> J.
>
I just read Montefiori's book, and I don't remember anything about Stalin being in constant physical pain. Maybe late in life when he was sick? Stalin did have a somewhat withered leg and arm on one side of his body from a childhood affliction -- maybe that's what the writer's thining about.
(Merry Western Christmas, by the way! I almost forgot about it -- we don't have Christmas for a couple of weeks.)
Re: The latest "we love Stalin poll":
Novye Izvestia December 22, 2004 THE TYRANT WHO IS ALWAYS WITH US Stalin still divides the people of Russia into irreconcilable camps Yesterday was the 125th anniversary of Stalin's birth Author: Sergei Tkachuk [from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html] [Yuri Levada's Analytical Center did a poll in the lead-up to Stalin's birthday. It found that a third of respondents consider Stalin a cruel tyrant, while an approximately equal number believe that his actions and their consequences have not been researched thoroughly enough as yet.]
Yesterday marked 125 years since the birth of Stalin. Yuri Levada's Analytical Center, a polling agency, did a poll in the lead-up to that date. It found that a third of respondents consider Stalin a cruel tyrant, while an approximately equal number believe that his actions and their consequences have not been researched thoroughly enough as yet.
Attitudes to Stalin differ markedly among various socio- demographic groups in Russia. Those most likely to speak well of him are the older age groups, and people with no education beyond high school. Most of them live in the Southern and Central federal districts. Of course, people who voted for the Communist Party (CPRF) in the last Duma elections are also loyal to Stalin's memory. Yuri Levada told us that they made up about 21% of respondents: "These are mostly elderly people, Stalin-type communists who consider the Soviet leader to be their leader."
Other societal layers are more ambivalent about Stalin. Thirty- one percent of respondents agreed with the following: "Stalin was a cruel, inhuman tyrant, responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people." A similar number of respondents (29%) say that whatever mistakes Stalin made, the most important thing is that he led the Soviet Union to victory in World War II. It's worth noting that support is increasing (33% now, compared to 30% in 1999) for the following statement: "We still don't know the whole truth about Stalin and his actions."
Quite a few respondents find justifications for the Soviet leader's harshness. Thus, 16% of respondents say that only a tough leader could have maintained order when class struggle was acute and the nation faced an external threat. Just as many respondents are even more radical, agreeing with the following statement: "our people will never be able to get by without a Stalin-type leader; sooner or later another one will come along and restore order."
In assessing the poll results, Yuri Levada said that attitudes to Stalin haven't changed over the past five years. (Since the last poll on that topic. - Editor's note) In Levada's view, this indicates that people aren't drawing any parallels between the Stalin era and events in Russia today. "People's attitudes to Stalin are mainly influenced by memories of cruelty and atrocities, as well as memories of the war."
It's worth noting that supporters of the Motherland (Rodina) party tend to take a negative view of Stalin. Motherland's leader, Dmitri Rogozin (who shares Stalin's birthday), seems to be exploiting the image of an "iron hand" leader with a heart, who cares about the people's troubles. But it appears that ordinary Motherland voters, while they do want strong government, don't want a Soviet version of it. Yuri Levada doesn't rate Rogozin's political prospects very highly: "He's only trying to present himself as a militant patriot, like Vladimir Zhirinovsky. But this isn't working for Rogozin; he can't work the crowd as well as Zhirnovsky can."
Translated by Gregory Malyutin
===== Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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