Bringing Stalin Back In: Memory Politics and the Creation of a Useable Past in Putin’s Russia

While Joseph Stalin is commonly reviled in the West as a murderous tyrant who committed egregious human rights abuses against his own people, in Russia he is often positively viewed as the symbol of Soviet-era stability and state power. How can there be such a disparity in perspectives? Utilizing an ethnographic approach, extensive interview data, and critical discourse analysis, this book examines the ways that the political elite in Russia are able to control and manipulate historical discourse about the Stalin period in order to advance their own political objectives. Appropriating the Stalinist discourse, they minimize or ignore outright crimes of the Soviet period, and instead focus on positive aspects of Stalin’s rule, especially his role in leading the Soviet Union to victory in the Second World War. Advancing the concepts of “preventive” and “complex” co-optation, this book analyzes how elites in Russia inhibit the emergence of groups that espouse alternative narratives, while promoting message-friendly groups that are in line with the Kremlin’s agenda. Bringing the resources of the state to bear, the Russian elite are able to co-opt multiple avenues of discourse formulation and dissemination. Elite-sponsored discourse positions Stalin as the symbol of a strong, centralized state that was capable of great achievements, despite great cost, enabling favorably portrayals of Stalin as part of a tradition of harsh but effective rulers in Russian history, such as Peter the Great. This strong state discourse is used to legitimize the return of authoritarianism in Russia today.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Long Shadow of Stalin Chapter 2: Russian ‘Soft Memory’ Part I: Crafting the Stalinist Narrative in Russian Society-at-Large Chapter 3: Russian ‘Soft Memory’ Part II: The Education Sphere and the Presentation of Stalinism Chapter 4: ‘Hard’ Memory: Comparing Memorialization of the Great Patriotic War and the Stalinist Repressions Chapter 5: Bringing It All Together: Complex Co-Optation, Civil Society, and Access to Discourse on the Soviet Period Chapter 6: Conclusion: Ghosts of the Past in the Russian Present

About the Author :
Todd H. Nelson is assistant professor at Cleveland State University.

Review :
Nelson has produced a well written and documented account of Stalin’s rehabilitation in post-Soviet Russia. This work has an extensive bibliography. It would be of interest to scholars interested in the construction of historical memory in Russia and also, more broadly, to readers with a general interest in post-Soviet Russian affairs. Bringing Stalin Back In will be most useful to students because of its well-written syntheses of English-language scholarship on memory politics in Russia. Nelson’s prose is accessible, and he mixes in personal encounters and writes in detail of his visits to a range of far-flung memorial sites. In coming to this conclusion, the book effectively overturns its initial premise of a gap between words and deeds, having demonstrated that what Russians (and Russian leaders) say matters in a very important way. Readers interested in learning how Russian public discourse shapes Russian collective memory and Russian public life will find this study a useful primer. “Under the Soviet regime, Russians liked to joke that theirs was the only country with an unpredictable past. In this insightful, well-researched work, Todd Nelson shows how Vladimir Putin has modernized Soviet techniques to tighten his grip on the politics of memory in today’s Russia. “ “In Russia, Stalin is the focal point of the memory; and memory is the central issue of contemporary politics. Moreover, conversations about Stalin in Russia are at the same time discussions about Russia’s present and future. In this book Todd H. Nelson provides the reader with a deep analysis of that main controversy, demonstrates the difficult crossings of the memories of war victory and memories of terror, and suggests a framework for the future study of Russia’s dealing with its past.” “Joseph Stalin’s long reign as the leader of the Soviet Union was marked by violent terror and repression that caused the deaths of millions, and though he has been dead for nearly 70 years, his malevolent shadow still looms large over Russia. Far too often, Russian President Vladimir Putin has associated Stalin with images of Russian glory, while glossing over the Stalinist terror. In this important book, Todd Nelson makes excellent use of discourse analysis to examine how various types of official texts in Russia have shaped official and public memories of Stalin through a process of complex co-optation. Bringing Stalin Back In is crucial for those who want to understand why millions of Russians nowadays, including many whose relatives were murdered by Stalin’s security apparatus, tell public opinion pollsters that Stalin was one of the ‘greatest leaders’ in Russia's history.” “Taking readers on a gripping journey from GULAG memorial sites through contemporary history textbooks, Todd Nelson lays bare the myriad ways in which the Russian government under Putin has whitewashed the Stalin era in an effort to legitimize its own increasingly authoritarian rule.”