Could Josef Stalin be made a saint?

[Marcus Marulus]

Could Josef Stalin be made a saint?

The Communist party in St Petersburg has petitioned the Orthodox Church to canonise Josef Stalin if he wins a television poll to nominate the greatest Russian in history.

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow

Last Updated: 10:56AM BST 23 Jul 2008


St Petersburg's Communists are convinced their vision will come to pass Photo: AP

The Soviet dictator, who was responsible for the deaths of around 15 million people during his 31-year reign of terror, is in second place in online voting for the Name of Russia competition.

Stalin last week surrendered a narrow lead to Nicholas II in the contest, which is based on the BBC's Great Britons series.

But with a result not expected until the end of the year, the country's Communists are convinced that Stalin will still emerge the victor.

While the poll, conducted by the state run Rossiya channel, has been criticised for allowing multiple voting, there is little doubt that Stalin has undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent years.

Opinion polls regularly name him Russia's greatest post-revolution leader after Vladimir Putin, the prime minister.

The wartime leader's resurgence owes much to the Kremlin, which under Mr Putin's presidency appeared to support a campaign to rehabilitate Stalin, with television documentaries, films and books released in recent years eulogising him.

A newly published history text book, approved by the Kremlin for use in all schools, glossed over the more unappealing parts of Stalin's rule and ultimately concluded that he was the Soviet Union's most successful leader.

"Stalin is the most popular name in Russia," said Sergei Malinkovich, the Communist party leader who is driving the Stalin canonisation campaign.

"The people have forgiven him for the repressions, the collectivization, the elimination of cadres of the Red Army and other inevitable errors and tragedies of those cruel military and revolutionary times.

"Stalin has become the true national leader of Russia. He turned a backward country into an industrial giant."

Yet the idea of tuning Uncle Joe into Saint Joe has so far won little official backing from the Orthodox Church, which was one of Stalin's chief victims.

Seeking to establish atheism as the Soviet Union's official creed, Stalin destroyed thousands of churches and sent tens of thousands of priests to the gulags and their deaths.

Despite the church's reluctance, St Petersburg's Communists are convinced their vision will come to pass. They have already commissioned religious icons depicting Stalin with a halo round his head that have reportedly sold very well around the city.

"By the end of the 21st century, icons of St Josef Stalin will be in every Orthodox Church," Mr Malinkovich said.

[source]

[Strengthandhonour]

I am not a Russian so maybe I fail at understanding this well but it seems kind of rude and disrespectful to make a man a saint that was responsible for so many deaths so recently.

[Sergius]

[drgs]

There is now a suspicion about a trojan virus being used in the internet voting, they are trying to sort it out. The country which voted for Stalin most actively was... Brazil.

[Marcus Marulus]

I heard similar stories from practically ALL former Communist dictatorships. You have some telephone polls in which allegedly the majority of those questioned expressed a favourable opinion for some defunct dictator. I remember there was in Hungary in the end of the nineties a telephone poll, organized by a private TV station, in which the question was of whether the former Communist leader of Hungary János Kádár deserved to have a public monument (statue) erected in his honour. János Kádár was the man who ruled Hungary for more than thirty years and came to power after the suppression of the Revolution of 1956. The 80% of the questioned - allegedly - agreed. One hears not seldom of favourable opinion of many Romanians on Ceauşescu, of Czechs and Slovaks on Gustáv Husák. As well as polls in countries in the former Yugoslavia, in which - allegedly - many people hold favourable opinions on Tito.

One need not necessarily dismiss all results of such polls as mere hoaxes (though that may be often the case), but it also has to be borne on mind that so-called Communism poisoned many hearts and minds, having had a certain kind of attractiveness for many poeple, through appealing to lowest instincts and drives.

Sometimes, when I am in a pessimistic mood, I think the spiritual damage wrought by those regimes is so strong that it could not possible be reapired by any conceivable medicine.

[drgs]

Originally Posted by Marulus

I heard similar stories from practically ALL former Communist dictatorships. You have some telephone polls in which allegedly the majority of those questioned expressed a favourable opinion for some defunct dictator. I remember there was in Hungary in the end of the nineties a telephone poll, organized by a private TV station, in which the question was of whether the former Communist leader of Hungary János Kádár deserved to have a public monument (statue) erected in his honour. János Kádár was the man who ruled Hungary for more than thirty years and came to power after the suppression of the Revolution of 1956. The 80% of the questioned - allegedly - agreed. One hears not seldom of favourable opinion of many Romanians on Ceauşescu, of Czechs and Slovaks on Gustáv Husák. As well as polls in countries in the former Yugoslavia, in which - allegedly - many people hold favourable opinions on Tito.

One need not necessarily dismiss all results of such polls as mere hoaxes (though that may be often the case), but it also has to be borne on mind that so-called Communism poisoned many hearts and minds, having had a certain kind of attractiveness for many poeple, through appealing to lowest instincts and drives.

Sometimes, when I am in a pessimistic mood, I think the spiritual damage wrought by those regimes is so strong that it could not possible be reapired by any conceivable medicine.

Don't put too much weight in "poisoned minds". USSR dissolved on people's initiative, a self-overcoming of communism.

Nicolas II is in the lead now anyway. He was the first who worked to unify all of Russia under one faith and government, but didn't quite manage to do it.
Stalin was the first fore-thinker of eurasian geopolitics, and a great anthropologist, who integrated the peoples of USSR together, created the ideals of the hard-working, educated, honest, righteous etc. communist, which all ethnicities were ment to look up to (with its costs), forced unrealistic, but needed wave of industrialization (with its costs), and brought USSR to its historical role as continuation of the Russian imperium. Also he was a despot and a tyrant who killed millions of people

[orieleye]

Originally Posted by Marulus

The Communist party in St Petersburg has petitioned the Orthodox Church to canonise Josef Stalin if he wins a television poll to nominate the greatest Russian in history.

Stalin wasn't a Russian.

[drgs]

Originally Posted by drgs

Nicolas II is in the lead now anyway.

No wait, he is nr. 4=)

The rating is as follows:
1. Vladimir Vysotsky
2. Josef Stalin
3. Alexandr Nevsky
4. Nicholas II

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by orieleye

Stalin wasn't a Russian.

He was Georgian, some say Georgianized Ossetian.

[drgs]

Lenin is nr 1 now, from 5-6th position a few days ago
Does it sound reasonable to you?

[Kan Yuvigi Asparukh]

Vodka f*cks everything up