Russia's strange Stalin cult

On December 21st Russian communists plan to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the birth of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. According to the Estonian daily Postimees this is not an isolated incident: "The Russian Communists are not a marginalised extremist group but the largest opposition party in the Duma [the Russian parliament]. And unlike other demonstrators they are not beaten up by militia but march openly through the centre of Moscow, blatantly holding up pictures of Stalin. … Of course there is not yet an all-embracing Stalin cult in Russia, and supporters and opponents more or less counterbalance each other. But one can certainly discern tendencies in Russia's public sphere that would not have existed in this form twenty years ago during the last days of the Soviet Union. And among them is the renovation of Moscow's Kurskaya tube station, in the course of which words glorifying Stalin were brought to light in October."   

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