The Stalin Peace Prize
Hey! This is interesting. Were you aware that there was, at one point in time, a thing called the Stalin Peace Prize? FANTASTIC! Though, after Kruschev came into power, destalinazation happened, Stalin was thrown out the door, and it was renamed the Lenin Peace Prize (or, if you must International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples from International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples.)
Insane, isn’t it? But appropriately inappropriate.
Interesting things are afoot in Putin’s Russia, and for the sake of rebrandishing a strong Russian Nationalism, a sort of restalinization process is taking place.
A Moscow court began hearings Thursday in a libel suit brought by Stalin’s grandson against a Russian newspaper that he claims called into question the Soviet dictator’s honor and dignity.
Recent years have seen an escalation in efforts to rehabilitate the dictator who, according to the rights group Memorial, ordered the deaths of at least 724,000 citizens during a series of purges that peaked in the late 1930s.
Earlier this year, Stalin was voted the third-greatest Russian of all time in a television poll. A plaque bearing his name that decades ago vanished from the vestibule of a Moscow metro station was recently restored. And former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev last year denounced efforts to portray Stalin as a ”brilliant manager” rather than a murderous autocrat.
”There are some people in power who want to see the history of the country as entirely glorious, as a step from victory to victory,” said Genri Reznik, Novaya Gazeta’s defense lawyer. The Kremlin’s goal, Reznik said, is that ”nothing must darken the attitudes of our people, and all negativity … plays into the hands of our enemy.”
Plaintiff lawyer Yury Mukhin disagreed.
”Stalin for many people is the symbol of an honest and fair leader,” he said. A victory in the libel case would vindicate that version of history, he said.
Of course, there are old family grudges at work here.
Nina Khrushcheva, the great granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, said she was ”absolutely on the side of Novaya Gazeta.” Her ancestor first exposed Stalin’s crimes and allowed the 1962 publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ”One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” which told of Stalin’s network of slave labor camps.
Khrushcheva, who teaches in the international affairs program at the New School in New York, told The Associated Press that the lawsuit is evidence that at least some Russian officials are determined to promote what she called the myth of Stalin as a wise if strict leader. ”The fact that in 2009 we’re still unable to separate facts from fiction is mind-boggling,” she said.
So, with Stalin making a comeback, it looks like it’s about time to renew the old Stalin Peace Prize. The Kremlin is surely taking nominations. As is the blog “Skull / Bones”. I have one nomination in mind off the top of my head.
Igor Panin. Who is Igor Panin? He made news a few times by predicting the imminent dissolution of the United States along the seemingly nonsensical lines shown here. Now, you must admit that if that were to happen, that would be catastrophic to the cause of Peace — lives would be lost as the wars that carve out the United States along those lines happens. Also if you notice, this dissolution has not happened — which can only mean that Igor Panin’s warnings have been heeded, and the necessary steps have been implemented to stop it.
But my guess is the new Stalin Peace Prize will end up going to Vladamir Putin.