Recently the Russian state TV channel ran a poll. There was only one question, ‘Choose the person you consider to be the most outstanding in the recent Russian History’. By an overwhelming margin (90%) the people had chosen Joseph Stalin. Alexander Prohanov, the outspoken Russian nationalistic propagandist had written a celebration article in the newspaper Zavtra ( tomorrow) ‘The soul is Christian. People are Stalinists’. It is worth noting that in the Russian language the ‘People’ is a singular, not a plural, so it is rather ‘People is a Stalinist’. But no matter how you put it the People had spoken.
That sounds inconceivable. The bloody dictator who presided over tons of corpses, the personification of the conniving evil beyond belief- he is considered the most outstanding, the man with whom the Russian history is associated with? What’s the Hell were they smoking?
But they explain. They say he was a charismatic leader. He was tough, committed, dedicated. He was building a state out of nothing. He had to be strong, merciless to his enemies, strict to his followers. He restored the great Russia and gave its people a sense of purpose. He molded them. He returned the sense of true virtue. He never took bribes and lived a simple life. He gave himself to the country. He even brought back the Orthodox Christianity. He transformed the atheist revolutionary spirit into the true national Russian movement. He made Russia a nuclear state and in that way preserved its independence. All those atrocities of his are either exaggerated or were necessary. Those things he allegedly did were done to fight a great war for the Russian way of life against the wave of destruction, world government., international bankers, illuminati, Jewish influence, masons, English, etc. etc. He was a Saint. That’s what they say. Read this paragraph again, please.
“People want leadership,”-says Michael J, Fox in the movie American President. There also Michael Douglas explains eloquently that to preserve a democracy, and the ADVANCED CITIZENSHIP is not easy. That means celebrating the differences. That means being happy with controversy. That means an appreciation of the additional put given by the point of view of the others. That means building a Babylonian Tower which will not fall. That means accepting that the freedom of choice is paramount and that includes such simple choice as not to give a damn. That means loving not the America, not the land of the free, not the free market but the People, all of them in Plural, great and small. Read this paragraph again, also, please.
In one of the poems about Stalin’s period Boris Slutsky says, ’He build socialism. Now let’s populate it.’ A very keen observation. Stalin did build a framework, a skeleton, something which stands, a Temple rather which he considered more important than the people whom he used to build that Temple. So enormous was that Temple and still is that even the descendants of those who under his wings lived or rather survived in the state of quite desperation- those descendants still glorify him like the ancient Egyptians glorified their Pharaohs long after they were .laid to rest in their Pyramids. They put Joseph Stalin in the pedestal because they know no better. He is their Savior because the he killed the real one.
This country, the one we live in is tired of democracy, of ADVANCED CITIZENSHIP, of the necessity to work hard, think broad, see far, It is tired of taking others into consideration, to look around, to pay attention. It is tired of the very virtues that made it great. Driven by fear, by paranoia, by the rising gas prices, by guilt, by greed, by malice and by ignorance the People of this country want to abandon their pluralism, their diversity and BECOME ONE. Beware of what you wish. Someone had been on that path before. It is a wrong path. This is not the road to the Temple. From the tragedy of the Russian History we need to gain learning and understand that the Road Less Taken is ours and that only in all the sublime mosaic of our people we will gain solace and achieve the beauty. Turned out you cannot make people happy without the beauty. Stalin did not care for it. Neither does Bush. Read this paragraph again. Here’s your sign.
