It's 88 years ago today that the Russian Revolution started. A story in the Australian reports a recent poll revealing that 50 percent of Russians consider Josef Stalin a "wise leader." (That's probably about as much as George Bush could hope for here in the U.S.) One in four Russians would vote for the genocidal butcher mustachioed statesman if he were to run for office today. Except that, well, old Joe probably wouldn't be holding any elections. That trifling fact doesn't bother one Stalin-besotted Russian, Yuri Vassilyev, who was born two decades after his communist hero died.
>> "After years of lies about him, the truth is coming out. We owe a lot to him. He turned the Soviet Union into a superpower that was feared and respected. A man like Stalin is what Russia needs now."
Increasing numbers of Mr Vassilyev's countrymen are taking a similarly sepia-tinged view of the dictator in the run-up to May's 60th anniversary of his finest moment, the defeat of Nazi Germany. Once dismissed as the rabid opinions of a few eccentrics and elderly nostalgics, statements glorifying Stalin can now be heard among those born long after his death in 1953. <<
If the Russians truly prefer a dictatorship to freedom and democracy, they're well on their way. A recent study by Freedom House, a human rights group, downgraded Russia from 'Partly Free' to 'Not Free.' This slide in status occurred, says the report, because of "an increased consolidation of political authority and stepped-up harrassment and restrictions on independent media." The New York Times, which wrote about the spread of global freedom on Sunday, noted that Russia's rating is now even below that of some African countries.
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