Stalin's Belly Button

A story in the Los Angeles Times by Megan Stack today seems to be a late Halloween follow-up to a story covered in September both here and by reporter Miriam Elder at The Global Post here.

Well, seeing the Times photo of this Stalin impersonator riding up a subway tunnel escalator surely makes it seem that way, anyway.

Writes Ms. Stack:

"[T]he visceral attachment to the icons [such as Stalin] is [ ] the consequence of a country that never quite shook off the shadow of the Soviet system. The world may regard Russia as a place utterly distinct from the Soviet Union, but here in Russia, where government buildings are still festooned with hammers and sickles, there is an abiding sense of continuum.

"The same doctors, teachers, builders and steelworkers continue to live and work in the same country, and everything in our midst was built by the hands of people in the Soviet Union," said Russian author Mikhail Veller. "The state changes, but the country remains the same."

Where's the Rest of Me?

Documentaries, from the West, of course, abound on Stalin, the Diabolical:

But (once more) what about within Russia itself today?

As noted on this blog and elsewhere last week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has indeed (publicly) lamented the revisionism taking place while decrying the deaths of millions of citizens killed "as a result of terror and false accusations."

Continues Ms. Stack:

"It was a striking departure from the general drift of the country, which takes a nuanced, if not positive, view of longtime Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. But Medvedev, who has often provided a rhetorical softening to the ruling elite's hard-line stances, is regarded as politically weaker than Putin, and so far his more liberal statements have done little to change the Russian status quo."

Vladimir Putin, of course, continues to play maestro supremo or chess master (or Tsar?) behind the scenes of Russia's re-emergence as Superpower.

So what will his next move be?

One must continue to wonder how he really felt (or feels) about Alexander Solzhenitsyn, for instance.

End Meanings?

Such polar opposites, their relationship began and ended (or begins and ends) with questions yet remaining.

Solzhenitsyn, the heroic (jailed) contrarian and, Putin, the strong-armed (jailer) nationalist; somehow, they really did grow over those few brief years and across generations (and even gulags) to respect and ultimately "embrace" each other (on the surface, at least).

Yes, Mr. Putin had the former Bolshaya Kommunistecheskaya Ulitsa (Big Communist Street) in Moscow named after his "friend" shortly after his death, but residents there may have torn down the sign again.

Is President Medvedev still in Putin's pocket (or merely the lint in his belly button)?

And does anyone in Russia even remember this man anymore?