According to a survey by the independent Levada center, Russians consider the greatest historical figure of the Communist dictator Joseph Stalin. He is credited with a major role in winning the war. For Stalin, who received 38%, to Vladimir Putin and to share second place poet Alexander Pushkin. They’re both at 34%. Followed by Lenin and Emperor Peter the First.
Over the past five years, Stalin lost four percent, but Putin has got another 12%. This year, the top ten also included Yuri Gagarin, writer Leo Tolstoy, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the Empress Catherine the great and poet Mikhail Lermontov.
It seems strange that someone (if we forget about the Stalinists) may be considered to be the greatest historical figure of Stalin. Of course, it all depends on what is meant by the word “figure”. The Emperor Nero, of course, also was a figure a-kind. But there’s a difference between being an important person, and being with a modicum of moral.
In a recent interview with the American Director Oliver stone Putin said about Stalin: “it seems to Me that the excessive demonization of Stalin is one of the ways of attack on the Soviet Union and Russia. To show that today’s Russia bears some birthmarks of Stalinism. We all do, so what?” He also noted that the destruction of millions of compatriots and the horrors of Stalinism should not be forgotten.
But Putin himself was a KGB officer, i.e. offspring of the Stalinist period. And organizations, which is in the style of the Cheka and the NKVD pursued both own and foreign citizens. As for Stalin, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn compared it with the man who murdered part of the crew of the aircraft, and when the problems started, this man managed to land the plane, and then it began to be celebrated as a hero.
From fans of this “great historical figures” should be especially original imagination. And the neighboring Nations should be very wary of what these fans can do with them.
