[BRIEF NOTE] Past/Present Dis/Continuities
Apr. 5th, 2005 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThe conclusion of Alexei Pankin's interesting article for the Moscow Times, "How Stalin Saved Democratic Russia", from the issue of Tuesday the 5th of April, 2005, struck me when I read it.
A few things about this conclusion strike me as wrong. Most of them stem, in my uninformed opinion, from the assumption of Pankin that there can be no overlap between a Russia that's an heir of previous empires and a Russia that's a new democratic state that has broken from the past. Breaks with the past are never as clean as people would like them, particularly not in the case of a Russian Federation that owes its very existence to Lenin and his heirs. Most of the rest come from the profoundly flawed assumption that Stalinist methods are ever morally legitimate in decolonization, particularly when said decolonization includes an unwanted half-century-long colonization. (And Estonia and Latvia each lost territory, unlike Lithuania and Ukraine, but these are relatively minor points.)
If we consider ourselves the heirs of the Soviet and Russian empires, it follows that we ought to curse Stalin and his imperial ambitions for bleeding the country dry and leaving it to die. And if that's the case, how can we talk about putting up monuments to the man? World War II vets would be the first to destroy the remains of Stalin's legacy. By finally and unequivocally condemning Stalinist imperialism, we would make peace with all of its victims.
If we consider Russia a new, democratic state that has broken with its imperial and totalitarian past, however, we actually owe a debt of historical gratitude to Stalin for helping Russia get rid of colonies that it didn't really need. In this case, we have every reason if not to encourage, then at least not to hinder the erection of new monuments to Stalin. And to remind our neighbors, including Ukraine and the Baltic states, that they have Stalin to thank for increasing the size of their countries.
A few things about this conclusion strike me as wrong. Most of them stem, in my uninformed opinion, from the assumption of Pankin that there can be no overlap between a Russia that's an heir of previous empires and a Russia that's a new democratic state that has broken from the past. Breaks with the past are never as clean as people would like them, particularly not in the case of a Russian Federation that owes its very existence to Lenin and his heirs. Most of the rest come from the profoundly flawed assumption that Stalinist methods are ever morally legitimate in decolonization, particularly when said decolonization includes an unwanted half-century-long colonization. (And Estonia and Latvia each lost territory, unlike Lithuania and Ukraine, but these are relatively minor points.)
