The question “Why do Russians love Stalin?” continues to fascinate observers but often serves as a means for them to paint Russians as inherently “abnormal,” authoritarian and violent. I think that Professor Andrei P. Tsygankov of San Francisco State University has given one of the most reasonable explanations why Russians continue to look favorably toward Stalin. Here is a snippet, but I encourage readers to check out the whole thing.
It is misleading to interpret strong public support for the revolution, Stalin or the Soviet Union as evidence for the Russians’ inability to come to grips with their past. Instead, such support confirms their refusal to come to grips with the present situation of mass poverty, coupled with a largely inefficient and persistently corrupt state. In the public mind, Yeltsinism, as a system that has created such a state, lives on. Unsurprisingly, a growing sympathy for Stalin strongly correlates with feelings of being “abandoned” by the state. Rather than being an outlandish authoritarian response, it is a natural, protest-like reaction to the political system of the 1990s many features of which remain part of everyday reality. Anywhere in the world people would withdraw their support for a state that consistently denies them sense of dignity and a decent level of living standards. State ability to formulate a paternalistic popular vision continues to matter. For example, Americans seem to love Ronald Reagan because he restored their sense of dignity (even while undermining middle class and economic foundations). French people think highly of Charles De Gaulle partly because the state was then socially paternalistic and autonomous.
