Stalin Lives, Truth Dies: Putin Weaponizes History

Last week, the Moscow metro installed a statue honoring Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. A replica of a monument removed during the 1960’s de-Stalinization, the piece reflects the resurgence of Stalin imagery in public spaces under President Vladimir Putin.

By venerating the legacy of a man who inflicted massive attacks on his own people, sent millions of people to Gulag labor camps, the Kremlin is intending to rewrite and weaponize history to legitimize its present-day invasion of Ukraine.  

Putin has both capitalized on and amplified Stalin’s popularity to rewrite Russia’s role in both World War II and the Cold War to justify his own imperial ambitions. The current Kremlin has praised Stalin a myriad of times throughout Putin’s presidency for his role in crafting modern Russian society.

In one speech, Putin noted Stalin’s transformation of Russia, calling him an “effective manager” and discussing how, “from 1924 to 1953, the country that Stalin ruled changed from an agrarian to an industrial society.”

In a 2017 interview with American film director Oliver Stone, Putin asserted enemies use the “excessive demonization” of Stalin as “one means of attacking the Soviet Union and Russia… to show that today’s Russia carries on itself some kind of birthmarks to Stalinism.”

Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, gave an interview just last week in which he railed against those who would try “to put Joseph Stalin on the same footing as Adolf Hitler.”

While celebrating Stalin’s patriotism and arguing that Russia’s only role in WWII was one of self-defense, Moscow has also made a concerted effort to undermine history by blaming the war’s start on Western countries alone.

To make his message resonate with Russians, Putin has targeted the legacy of leaders, like the UK’s former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who are familiar scapegoats in Russian media. It was Stalin himself, in fact, who began the cult of hatred against Churchill comparing him to Adolf Hitler and labeling him as a “warmonger.”

Putin’s administration has mirrored these sentiments. At a 2019 meeting with heads of various international news agencies, Putin stated “Let’s remember Churchill, who at first hated the Soviet Union, then called Joseph Stalin a great revolutionary when it was necessary to fight Nazism, and after the Americans got nuclear weapons, he called for the immediate destruction of the Soviet Union.” 

Putin’s revisionist version of history has been successful, with a 2017 Levada center poll finding that a quarter of Russians believed Stalin’s repressions were “historically justified.”

A 2018 study finding that only 44% of Russians accepted that Stalin was guilty of killing millions of people, while a 2019 study found a 14% increase in respect for Stalin with an overall 51% of the population maintaining positive sentiments about him. In 2021, Stalin was named by 39% of Russians as “the most outstanding figure of all times and all nations.”  Even more worryingly, the largest increase in support for Stalin was amongst the youngest 18–30-year-old age group.

Rewriting Stalin’s legacy

Putin is attempting to eradicate mention and memory of the tens of millions of Soviet citizens who starved and died under his collectivization policies and during the Great Terror; the millions sent to toil and perish in the Gulag without trial or justice; the intellectuals and dissidents silenced and families torn apart by fear of the regime.

His efforts to control the information space are, ironically, similar to those Stalin undertook himself. The dictator micromanaged media and government propaganda enforced strict coverage rules for foreign journalists, and even banned jokes that didn’t directly support his rule.

Authoritarian regimes are particularly keen to censor satire and irony because dark humor resonates with the public. Just as Hitler hated the Charlie Chaplin’s film “The Great Dictator,” Putin detests the 2017 satirical black comedy “The Death of Stalin.”

Just as Stalin imprisoned people for telling disrespectful jokes, Putin has passed a law to jail people for “disrespecting government.” To effectively leverage discontent brewing within the Russian population, the West had an easy opportunity, especially as the Kremlin basked in the glow of Victory Day celebrations. It should revive old jokes about Stalin, tapping into existing cultural touchpoints and unsettling the image of power and historical legitimacy that Putin seeks to construct.

Sending tales about Western democracy will not resonate with the Russians – the West must instead appeal to Russian nationalism by portraying Putin as a weak leader who destroyed Russian glory with his war in Ukraine. War, of course, is no laughing matter. But it is about time that Putin learned that jokes can be perilous when they reveal the truth. 

Dr. Ivana Stradner serves as a research fellow with the Barish Center for Media Integrity at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Her research focuses on Russia’s security strategies and military doctrines to understand how Russia uses information operations for strategic communication.