"Unveiling the Truth Behind Russia's New 'Stalin Centers'"

Analysis | The Unveiling Story of Russia's New "Stalin Centers" Last month marked the inauguration of a fresh "Stalin Center" in Barnaul, Siberia. It joins its predecessors in Penza and Bor, Russian cities where these establishments aim to lionize the communist dictator. Jade McGlynn is a non-resident senior associate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and penned the books “Russia’s War” and “Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia”. The following analysis revolves around her insights. In the previous month, Barnaul, Siberia, saw the initiation of a new "Stalin Center." The objective, akin to the previous centers in Penza and Bor in Russia, is to idolize the communist ruler. Beyond an evident spike in Stalin statues all over Russia (over 100 since 2012), the Stalin centers seem to validate a simplistic narrative: The Kremlin is rehabilitating the "Vozhd," or supreme leader. However, a closer inspection complexifies the tale. The inaugural Stalin cultural center debuted in 2016 in Penza, western Russia, backed by local communists but not by United Russia, the Russian President Vladimir Putin's party. The second such center, unveiled in 2021 in Bor, also in western Russia, was initially a private enterprise of a local communist entrepreneur. It commenced with a Stalin statue overlooking the Volga River. The mayor of Bor even asked for its removal, albeit without success. The most recent center in Barnaul was established by the Communists of Russia, a marginal and radical Stalinist party that stands separate from the much larger, pro-Kremlin Russian Communist Party. Fundamentally, these centers, like many of the new Stalin monuments, are not Kremlin-imposed but rather grassroots or non-state initiatives. Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising. According to the independent Levada Center, Stalin has topped its poll on "who is the greatest figure of all time and of all nations" since 2012. Putin’s Balancing Act Towards and Against Stalin Of course, this favorable view is not undisputed. The Russian human rights organization Memorial has tirelessly worked for over 30 years documenting Soviet crimes, which were extensively discussed during the Gorbachev and the post-Soviet era. More recently, Russian journalist and YouTube star Yury Dud powerfully detailed the horrors and legacy of the Stalinist Gulag forced labor camps in his 2019 documentary “Kolyma: Birthplace of Our Fear”. The YouTube video boasts more than 29 million views. Putin's handling of Stalin takes into account both positions. Instead of glorifying the communist dictator, he offers a somewhat equivocal viewpoint trying to placate both pro and anti-Stalin electors within Russian society. To achieve this, he overlooks but doesn't deny the large scale of the communist dictator's terror and repressions. In 2017, Putin inaugurated Russia's first monument to the victims of Stalin's repressions in Moscow: the “Wall of Sorrow”. During the inauguration, he confirmed: “We should never again push society to the dangerous precipice of division”. Throughout his 24-year reign, Putin's rhetoric on Stalin has remained reasonably consistent. He does not deny Stalin's crimes but attempts to deflect attention from them, admitting the Gulag's horror and mass repressions but insisting that the memory of these crimes should not overshadow Stalinism's accomplishments. He believes that the efforts to excessively "demonize" Stalin are part of an attack on Russia. Silencing Stalin’s Victims While Putin displayed little enthusiasm for glorifying Stalin, his administration has methodically worked to quiet, or at least render abstract, the memory of the Gulag victims. For instance, the memorial complex “Perm-36”, the only intact Gulag in Russia, was taken over by local authorities in 2015. When it reopened, the individual stories of the prisoners' lives were replaced with content celebrating the prison guards and the camp's contributions to World War II's timber production. Elsewhere, the closing down of the Memorial in 2021, which recorded Soviet abuses against human rights, especially during the Great Terror, and the recent removal of the "Last Address" memorial plaques by municipal utilities, depict an altered narrative surged by the state.