[PEN-L:1841] Russian Stalinists Commemorate Dictator's Birthday

[Gregory Schwartz <grishas@xxxxxxxx>]

Stalinists Commemorate Dictator's Birthday

MOSCOW, Dec. 22, 1998 -- (Reuters) Several hundred Russian Communists
marched to Red Square on Monday to lay carnations at the Kremlin wall tomb
of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on the 119th anniversary of his birth.

The solemn scene, amid a light drizzle, underscored the extent to which the
question of Stalin's legacy still divides Russians seven years after the
fall of the Soviet Union.

Most Russians have come to regard Stalin as he is regarded in the West -- a
capricious tyrant who murdered millions during nearly three decades of
repressive rule.

Some years after his death in 1953, the Soviet Communist party took down
nearly all of Stalin's statues and moved his embalmed body from the
ostentatious mausoleum in the center of Red Square -- where it lay next to
that of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin -- to a more prosaic grave nearby.

But many, especially some elderly people, still recall with fondness the
days when Russia was a superpower, and credit Stalin for leading the country
to victory in World War II.

Although open signs of reverence toward Stalin remain rare, even among the
Communists who make up the largest party in parliament, a few Stalinists
gather at the anniversaries of his birth and death each year.

Despite an exhortation from the man next to her not to "give an interview to
the Zionists," Tatyana Kryzhanovskya told reporters that she remembered her
childhood under Stalin with pride. Clutching a portrait of the dictator, she
described the celebrations his birthday once drew.

"In 1940, we gathered with our teachers in Moscow. They put red Young
Pioneer ribbons around our necks with metal clasps. And now, our teachers
walk by and do not say that this is our beloved father," she said.

"During the war I lost my mother and father. We worked alongside the adults
and defended our motherland, believing in our own Stalin."

Mikhail Ivanov, who said he was a child during the 900-day siege of
Leningrad, said: "Under Stalin, Russia became a great power that helped
other countries fight for their freedom."

Russia's NTV television over the weekend reported another sign of how
Stalin's image continues to haunt Russians.

A bust of the dictator was unveiled in a provincial Ural Mountains Russian
school on Saturday, to applause from local Communists and protests from some
teachers.

NTV said it was the first time a memorial to Stalin had been restored in
Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"It was because of his command that the Soviet Union achieved victory in
World War II," one schoolgirl told NTV.

But liberals held a demonstration outside the school. "Those who are for
Stalin today are simply trying to blame the present government for all their
troubles," one man said.

Liberal politicians have warned in recent months that the economic crisis
which has engulfed the country since August is fuelling political extremism.
They point to a recent spate of anti-Jewish statements by Communist party
leaders. During Stalin's reign, Jews were widely persecuted by Soviet
officials.

--
Gregory Schwartz
Department of Political Science
York University
4700 Keele St.
Toronto, Ontario
M3J 1P3
Canada

tel:  (416) 736-5265
fax:  (416) 736-5686