Stalin Voted Third Most Popular Russian

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: NYT/Reuters

Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was voted Russia's third most popular historical figure in a nationwide poll that ended on Sunday, despite the famine and purges that marked his rule.

The "Name of Russia" contest run by Rossiya state television channel over more than six months closed on Sunday night with a final vote via the Internet and mobile phones. It drew more than 50 million votes in a nation of 143 million.

Millions of Soviet citizens perished from famine during forced collectivization, were executed as "enemies of the people" or died in Gulag hard labor camps during Stalin's rule which lasted for almost 30 years until his death in 1953.

"We now have to think very seriously, why the nation chooses to put Josef Vissarionovich Stalin in third place," prominent actor and film director Nikita Mikhalkov, one of the contest's judges, said after the results of the vote flashed on a screen. "We may find ourselves in a situation where absolute power and voluntarism that ignores people's opinions may prevail in our country, if a fairly large part of the nation wants it."

At the top of the list was 13th century prince Alexander Nevsky, who defeated German invaders, followed by Pyotr Stolypin, a prime minister in the early 20th century known for agrarian reforms and a clampdown on leftist revolutionaries....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2008/12/28/news/news-us-...

[Drunken Irishman]

1. What a terrible article.

So...he came in third, but it doesn't list what percentage of the vote he got? There were 50 people to pick from and it's entirely possible Stalin received a very small share of the vote.

Ok, I looked it up. He received 11.5% of the vote.

Really, 11.5 is nothing. They make it sound like it was close to a huge number and it isn't.

Crappy journalism.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Good point. Thanks for finding this additional info. nt

[kegler14]

6. No matter what the percentage,

third is really sick. Stalin is one of the top mass murderers of all time.

[Drunken Irishman]

9. Of course, but it's not surprising.

11.5% is nothing, if you ask me.

I'm guessing Bush can garner 11.5% support as the Greatest American Alive.

The third part is deceptive, though. Just as those lists showing the most admired men in American that have Bush at third or fourth. Sure, he's high up (well was before this year), but he only gained either high single digits or low double digits.

But when people read 3rd, they probably think he received 30+ percent of the vote. That's wrong.

[awoke_in_2003]

10. What is sad...

is that they probably voted for him because he kept order. Russians have a long history of liking authoritarian rulers.

[Ian David]

2. What really counts is who counted the votes. n/t

[dysfunctional press]

3. that's got to give the shrub something to be optimistic about....

vis-a-vis his legacy.

[Alamuti Lotus]

5. slightly schizophrenic listing

(pseudo-)Marxist Revolutionary Stalin at #3, anti-Marxist Revolutionary Stolypin at #2.

Perhaps not schizophrenic, but rather revealing divisions in perception.

[rockymountaindem]

7. Well, at least the number one choice was a good pick

And Dimitry Mendeleev made the top ten, so that's encouraging.

[rockymountaindem]

8. You can see the winners here:

http://www.nameofrussia.ru/rating.html?all=1

They are:

Alexander Nevsky
Peter Stolypin
Stalin
Alexander Pushkin
Peter the Great
Alexander Suvorov
Lenin
Dimitry Mendeleev
Feodor Dostoevsky
Ivan the Terrible

[Fearless]

16. I love how Ivan the Terrible (ie Ivan IV) is on there too...

[rockymountaindem]

25. His reputation in Russia does not conform to "terrible" in translation

Ivan IV earned that nickname for his victories over the Golden Horde, i.e. he was terrible to the enemy. He is greatly admired for creating a highly centralized state and for driving the last vestiges of Mongol power out of Russia (and sacking their capital, Kazan). Of course, he also created a diabolical police state regime which he used to torture his enemies and which created enormous corruption and abuses of power by Ivan's buddies, but as we all know people tend to just remember the "good times". Ivan IV isn't really a surprising pick and I don't think he reflects poorly on Russia.

[Fearless]

26. I think a good allusion would be to Mussolini.

In Italy he was a savior, elsewhere... well we know the rest.

[Odin2005]

11. Somebody remind them that Stalin was GEORGIAN.

You know, from the country the people Russia recently bombed for purposes of intimidation? his real last name was Dzugashvilli, a Georgian surname.

[LisaL]

12. Why is that important? Russia didn't have the rule that only

naturally born citizen can become its historical figure/ruler/tsar/.

[happyslug]

14. Nationalities, as understood in the West, never really took hold in Russia

The best example of this was during WWI, when the Russians took over territories, the first thing they sent in were Orthodox priests. A French General who observing the then allies of France, notice this and objected to it, why send priests when Ammunition was still needed? The French General did NOT understand that Nationality was NOT fixed in Russia or the West of Eastern Europe for most people. Your Religion, even if you did NOT attend Church, was more important and determined your Nationality much more then your bloodline. Thus sending in the Priests to take over the Churches could change the nationality of that area. Now this applied more to Slavic Areas (Poland, Ukraine, Belarus) then Non-Slavic Areas (Romania, the Baltic States), but even the non-slavic areas could be changed, for connections with Moscow via the Orthodox Church was one of the key to the Power of the Tsars.

Now, with the Replacement of the Tsars with the Communists these attempts at "conversion" officially ended, replaced by making everyone a Communists (Orthodox was officially repressed, to be reviled by Stalin himself during WWII who then proceeded to force the Unite Orthodox Church to merge with the Russian Orthodox Church to cut back on the power of the Pope inside the Ukraine, I point this out more to show that the Tsar's policies were NOT completely ended with the execution of the last Tsar).

This was made more complicated by the Fact that officially non-Russian Orthodox churches were recognized (For example the Catholic Church in Poland and Lithuanian, Moslems in right is now the Central Asia Republics of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan). Even at the end of the Russian Empire it had become understood that the Russian Empire made of more people then just Russians and other Slavs, and these other people had rights within the Empire. Thus by the time of the Revolution it had long been held that such people were "Russian" even if they had no Russian blood in them.

Now this process did NOT start with the Russian Empire, it goes back to the time of the Mongols, who gladly took in non-mongols into their armies. As the Mongol Empire broke up, the various people of central Asia looked back on it much like people in the Middle ages looked back at the Roman Empire, as a united country that do to its unity all of the people under it prospered. As the Tsars slowly won its independence from the Mongolian Golden Horde, the Tsars slowly took over symbols of that empire. The Mongol Color for the West was White, which was the Color of the Golden Horde as the Mongol Empire Broke up. Thus the Tsars of Russia embraced White as their color as the Tsar took over the remands of the Golden Horde. With this merger of the remains of the Golden Horde and the Tsars, the Tsars fully embraced the idea that he ruled NON-Russian citizens as the replacement for the Golden Horde and fully flew his white colors so such non-Russians would embrace the Russian Empire as the replacement for the Golden Horde. Thus Russian by the time of Ivan the Terrible had fully embraced both that it was the descendant of Rome (via Constantinople and Orthodoxy) and the Golden Horde of the Mongol Empire. Both Groups viewed themselves as above mere nationality (as that is understood in the West) but as a united country based on the united provided by its leadership (The Tsar). Everyone who lived under the Tsar was his Subject, to whom the Tsar owned leadership duties to AND from who the Tsar expected duties from. Thus under this concept Stalin, and everyone else who lived under the Tsar, was a Russian.

Now in the late 1800s you see this concept coming into conflict with the Western Concept of Nationality. The Russians even had different names for the two concepts, calling its citizens "Greater Russians" as opposed to Russian as a Nationality. The Communists took this another step, having everyone being called a Citizen of the Soviet Union, even as Stalin re-invented another Tsarist Trick, internal Passports (Where people had to declare themselves some Nationality, if your parents were of two different Nationalities you had the right to pick one of them as your own, most who could do so picked Russian, for under the Communists Russians were viewed as the most loyal to the Party).

Just a comment, do NOT get hang up over Nationality, as that is used in the West when it comes to the term "Russian". Russia has at least two traditions that goes against the concept of Western Nationality, both to strong for the Russians NOT to embrace people of other Nationalities as being Russian.

[lanlady]

20. are you justifying Russian imperialism?

Russia (tsarist and Soviet) was called the great "prison house of nations" for a good reason. Its rulers both secular and religious sought to wipe out non-Russian faiths, languages, customs, and national identities. In cases when that didn't work, they resorted to pogroms (the Jews), forced exile (Crimean Tatars), massacre by artificial famine (Ukrainians) or the destruction of elites (the Balts).

Its sounds to me like you're trying to concoct some justification for how Russia treats non-Russian ethnic groups. Maybe I misread your meaning.

[happyslug]

23. Russia is a large country without natural borders.

As a large country without Natural borders it will expand till it can no longer expand i.e. hit a natural border. The problem is the natural Border for Russia is the Baltic sea to the west, the Silesia Mountains of Western Poland, the Carpathian Mountains of Slovakia the Black Sea, the Causes Mountains, the Northern Mountains of Iran, the foothills of the Himalayas (I.e Afghanistan) and the western Deserts of China. Mongolia was a long time satellite of the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union and today the Russian Federation. The Great Wall of China uses and connects the various Mountains of Northern China to separate China from Siberia, but no such barrier exist between Siberia and Russia (The Ural Mountains do act as an administrative Border but most people travel south of it, over the Ural River or go through the many passes in those mountains).

Notice the Natural Border of Russia overlaps many other nations, including former members of the Warsaw Pact in addition to former Republics within the Soviet Union. Can Russia be that large? Most of the people on the edges of those borders do NOT think so, but they also have to deal and understand Russia. This is complicated by the various known invasions of Russia by countries on these and beyond these natural borders. The Swedes attacked in the 900s as Vikings, taking over huge sections of Russia for their own use, the Swedes would return in the 1700s taking Estonia and Latvia (The chief reason both areas are "Lutheran" church areas as opposed to Orthodox areas). The Germans took Prussia, and killed off all the natives, then moved against Poland and Lithuanian in addition to Russia under the banner of the Teutonic Knights who were under the Political Control of the Holy Roman Emperor (Germany will re-invade during the WWI and WWII). Poland was both a victim of Swedish and German Invasions (During the 1700s and again in the 1900s) in addition to invading Russia itself during the times of troubles (And the last Country to take Russia's Capital, Polish Troops took Russia during a winter of the "Time of Troubles" but left the following spring, when Napoleon took Moscow, St Petersburg had been the Capital for over a Century).

Thus we have the French under Napoleon, and the French again, this time with the English the 1850s (The French and English would re-invade during the Russian Civil War). The Hungarians invaded Russia as part of the Austrian Empire in WWI and again as a ally of Hitler in WWII. We can NOT exclude the Greeks, who invaded Russia during the 700s to undo one of the powers of the Steeps that was interfering with Grain shipments to Constantinople. The Turks made several attempts to take over the Crimean section of Russia/Ukraine. Before Hitler (1941), Napoleon (1812) and Charles X (1700) the last serious invasion of Russia was done by Tamerlane, whose power base was modern Iraq, Iran Pakistan and Northern India (extending to Delhi, which he destroyed). China is not exempt for the Ming Dynasty moved the Chinese Border North of the Great Wall in an attempt to take over Mongolia (Which they did as far as inner Mongolia is concerned) but failed as to outer Mongolia, which is still an independent Country but a Satellite of the Russian Federation (Mongolia had invaded China in addition to Russia and Iran during the time of Genghis Khan and his grandson Kublai Khan). Japan in not exempt, having attacked the Russian Fleet in Port Arthur in 1905 (Without first declaring war, which the Japanese will do again in 1941). The US is NOT completely exempt from invading Russia, having sent in troops during the Russian CiviL War to support the Whites who opposed the Communists.

Now, the above are historical facts. Facts people dislike but facts none the less. There do NOT justify Russian Imperialism, but they show that Russia has fears and any country with fears will act on those fears. In the case of Russia it is to control its Natural Borders no matter the cost. Only when it can no longer maintain those natural borders will it give up those natural borders. This is what happen in the early 1990s, Russia could NOT afford to keep sufficient troops at those locations so it withdrew them and so ended the Warsaw Pact and later the Soviet Union itself. The problem is the US has been moving into those border regions and Russia will always oppose any such move.

To understand a country you MUST try to see the world in their eyes, not as conquering hordes but as fearful citizens worried about invasion from outside powers. That is what Russia is looking at and trying to work with their fellow former Soviet States to address. Russia has the ability to take and hold all of the former Soviet Republics, they know it as does Russia. Given that fact Russia has NOT felt a need to do such an invasion, but the presence of foreign troops may be enough provocation. Lets just learn to work with Russia and address its fears NOT make such fears to be justify by sending in troops and equipment to Former Soviet States that are on the same flat plain as Russia is on itself.

,

[lanlady]

27. you argue through a Russian prism

Parts of what you regard as Russia are actually Ukraine. For example, there was no "Russia" in the 900s for Vikings to attack. The Vikings helped to establish Kievan Rus, which became Ukraine, not Russia. Also, what makes you think that Crimea belongs to Russia? It was annexed by the Russian empire only in 1783. And Russia's natural border in the West is the Carpathian mountains? Are you kidding? There is a very large country in between there, it's called Ukraine!

[happyslug]

31. And it is one big flat piece of land, with NO mountains to act as borders.

That has been a problem with the area between Germany and the Pacific, it is HARD to draw a line that is something more then a line in the dirt. There are NO Natural borders. River bring people together they do NOT separate people, thus the heartland of Poland is the Vistula Valley. The next east-West drainage area is the Dnieper River, the heart of the Ukraine, but parts of Vistula drainage system reaches into the Ukraine, while parts of the Dnieper system reaches into Poland. Furthermore these two river systems have tributaries that both come out of the border area, where one nationality blurs into the next, in this case Polish into Ukrainian. The next River is the Don, which is connected to the heart of Russia, the Volga via the Don-Volga Canal. The Don was the home of the Don Cossacks, till they were destroyed by Catherine the Great (They previously had played Moscow against Warsaw and the Turks in an effort to be free of all three, but this ended in the late 1700s when both Poland and Turkey otherwise occupied, Catherine sent in her army). Today the Don is considered a Russian Area, but again the Don's Western Drainage area comes near and overlaps the Dnieper's drainage area and again in that area you have a blue between who is a Ukrainian and who is a Russian. This continues through the Volga River System and the Ural river Systems. While all of the above river systems have some start of tributaries in mountain, the problem are those tributaries that arise out of the East European Plain between Germany and the Ural River (Where the plain becomes the Siberian Plain). The rivers act to bring people together, with the low land between the rivers permitting rapid portages between the Rivers systems. Thus you do NOT have the difference caused by a nearly complete division between two people like you have in Western Europe. Most Poles can understand Ukrainian and Russian. It is clear these are different languages but more like the difference between Italian and Spanish as opposed to either language and French let alone German. Changes in language flows from one to the other with little effort (Through clear differences are known and joked about in areas where all three groups live together like in the South Side of Pittsburgh). I once went to two church raising efforts on the South Side, if I went to the Polish Church they would tell me the Polish pronunciation of the food I was buying, when I went to the Ukrainian they would tell me the Ukrainian pronunciation. When both were operating at the same time, they would tell me both and joke about the difference. The difference was clear but if you said one to someone who only had heard the other they would understand what you wanted (and joked about the difference in pronunciation with me and others in English on Pittsburgh South side).

This overlap of people in the areas where the river's tributaries came close together (and sometimes overlaps) continues as you go East, but without the Slavic base the language difference increase but the need to communicate with each other brings with it a tendency to use whatever is the dominate language throughout the area. At the time of the Mongol Empire it was Mongolian, since the 1600s it has been Russian. This includes the Ob and its chief tributaries the Irtysh, the Yenisei, the Lena, and the Amur Rivers in Siberia. The people of these river systems tend to flow into the people in the next river system. Greater language barriers then in European Russia but the use of Russia as the Common Language seems to solve most language problems. This overlap continues into the Rivers that flow into the Aral Sea, including the inflows Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers.

Anyway my point is none of the above rivers are good as borders nor do any of them have any good good borders to their East or West (with the Exception of the Vistula which has the Silesia Mountains to its West, and the Amur River which flows into the Pacific). Thus any border is artificial, it is a line drawn in the dirt. A natural border is one made of Mountains or a large Oceans (Lakes and seas tend to unite people, much like rivers, thus England, Norway, Sweden and Denmark tended to be more or less united during the times of the Viking and until the time of Canute the Great). The same things with the above Eurasian Rivers, they unite people given the east it takes to transport things on said rivers and the ease it is to move from one river system to the next. In olden days this was done by portage, today by truck on roads, Canal or railroads. This is how the Russian Empire and the earlier Mongolian empire started, uniting the various people of the above Rivers into one big country.

[Igel]

24. Likely.

I was listening to a radio show host comment on the ruse of nationalism in 19th century music, and he opined that the rise of nationalism overall at the time in Europe must have been linked to the carving up of Europe by various rulers in lines that didn't match ethnic boundaries.

Like that had ever mattered when the Romans, Byzantines, Lithuanians/Poles, etc., etc. did the same thing. But not having mattered for centuries, suddenly it mattered, cet. par. Right.

However, it happened as the Enlightenment spread throught a wide section of the educated classes, and as the educated classes grew. The educated Europeans stopped having religion and a some core classical learning and beliefs as their unifying trait--also as the counterweight to the Ottoman Empire became less important. Commoners always had a mix of ethnicity and religion as important, with religion often having the upper hand (but not always); it's not like the various groups don't exist through time, it's that the ranking of values, roof vs. group boundaries (and type of group boundaries) varies over time, so now one kind of group is more important, now the boundaries run in a different way--religion, race, ethnicity, class, language, income, landedness, bloodlines, etc., etc. The "roof" that held all the different groups together vanished in early 19th century Europe, and the result was having a bunch of groups suddenly be visible.

Sometimes the roof becames half-transparent, as in Kenya last year, and reasserts itself. Or it's barely in place, as in Zimbabwe. Or one group wants to cave it in, as in Mauritania. Sometimes the different groups disagree on what the roof should be, even if they think there should be, can only be, one.

The "roof" could be religion, or it could be ideology or some other larger ideal. Sometimes there's a backlash to the revealing of lots of little groups: Putin's trying to install authoritarianism and orthodoxy as a new roof; Europeans are trying to have a single roof; China refuses to allow its ideological roof to decay; pan-Arabism failed, so many Muslims are trying to seek a common ethnicity in the Islamic ummah (shades of Ottoman rule ... where religion was ethnicity, to a very large degree). The US is mixed, with a minor backlash even as little groups continue to increase in numbers, but with no clear unity as to what the new "roof" should be--if there should be one--after disposing of most of the old roof.

Stalin was under the Russian roof, in the Russian empire, even though he was an independence fighter (wanting to dispose of the common roof) before he decided to change the roof entirely. He was raised Orthodox (like that matters in the least), and was ultra-orthodox (to mix religious metaphors) in power. He defined the roof, and for many that like the idea of a good roof, he's popular. Even at the expense of the truth (which can serve as a different kind of roof).

[David__77]

18. Stalin was born a Russian subject, just like anyone in the empire.

Then he was a Soviet citizen, and Russia of course was the largest Soviet Republic. Georgians can "claim" Stalin as well, and many do so.

[PittPoliSci]

13. Joe-mentum. n/t

[Selatius]

15. People would rather vote for leaders who are strong but wrong than leaders who are...

right but weak or tepid. It's an observation I made about American politics and why people repeatedly voted for George Bush and the Republicans and why Democrats are seen as conflicted or indecisive. The Republicans appeared pretty decisive and always made snap decisions, even if they were wrong. Their answers were simple and to the point, even though the situation may have called for more complex solutions, and they always appeared sure in the face of critics, even if the critics had valid points.

They were wrong about a lot of things, but people, at least until very recently, always felt Republicans were superior to Democrats in the arena of national security.

I guess many Russians long for the glory days when Russia was a mighty powerhouse that the world either feared or respected, the days when Russia had just come out of mighty war against Adolf Hitler victorious and when they were a manufacturing juggernaut larger than all except the United States.

[Fearless]

17. Case and point: Jimmy Carter.

[David__77]

19. I find it more surprising that Slolypin is #2.

I think the whole "poll" is overrun with sectarians with a narrow agenda.

[lanlady]

21. not a representative sample

People voting over the Internet and cell phones are self-selected, so the numbers are questionable. It would be skewed to the young and possible males.

Even so, I'm not surprised that 11% thought Soso Dzhugashvili aka Jozef Stalin was Russia's greatest leader (although he was Georgian without a drop of Russian blood in him). There's been a lot of revisionist history written in Russia since the collapse of Soviet power. And Stalin was leader when Russia repelled the might armies of Hitler -- that counts for a lot in retrospect. Knowing how easy it is for people to delude themselves, I can see where 11% overlook the fact that he was one of world history's bloodiest tyrants.

Self-delusion isn't limited to the Russians of course. Oliver Cromwell is regarded by the British as a Englishman, yet to the Irish he was the oppressor of their nation.

[Turbineguy]

22. Well....

The 53 million Russians Stalin killed did not partake in the survey.

[Jack Rabbit]

28. Who beat him out?

Ivan the Terrible and Tsar Nicholas I?

[Betty]

29. something to give bush hope.

history will vindicate him!!!!! Someday, idiots will once again vote for him.

[JVS]

30. #2 was Stolypin? WTF?

I can see Aleksander Nevsky, that guy is a fucking legend. Stolypin's programs were a flop and the tsar he worked for was overthrown and killed. These are generally not the hallmark of effective policy making.