Neo-Stalinism
Neo-Stalinism is being actively promoted by Eurasianist currents in various post-Soviet states and official rehabilitation of Stalin has occurred in Russia under Vladimir Putin.
[9] Philosopher Frederick Copleston, writing in 1986, portrays neo-Stalinism as a "Slavophile emphasis on Russia and her history", saying that "what is called neo-Stalinism is not exclusively an expression of a desire to control, dominate, repress and dragoon; it is also the expression of a desire that Russia, while making use of western science and technology, should avoid contamination by western 'degenerate' attitudes and pursue her own path".
The Khalq regime in Afghanistan (April 1978 – December 1979) has been described as neo-Stalinist with its leader Hafizullah Amin, who kept a portrait of Joseph Stalin on his desk.
Assad's military dictatorship borrowed many features of Stalinism; such as a brutal security apparatus operating extrajudicially, mass-surveillance in the society through an invasive secret police and a pervasive state-sponsored personality cult centred around the ruling family.
[19][20] Assad dynasty ruled Syria by vicious methods of violence throughout its reign, characterized by state terror, massacres, aerial bombing of cities, military clampdowns, etc.
He called for meetings between the East and West in hopes of reducing forces in Europe, while also advocating for a settlement of the Korean situation and for German reunification.
[27][28] In February 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced the cult of personality surrounding his predecessor Joseph Stalin and condemned crimes committed during the Great Purge.
[29] Following the Trotskyist comprehension of Stalin's policies as a deviation from the path of Marxism–Leninism, George Novack described Khrushchev's politics as guided by a "neo-Stalinist line", its principle being that "the socialist forces can conquer all opposition even in the imperialist centers, not by the example of internal class power, but by the external power of Soviet example",[30] explaining as such: "Khrushchev's innovations at the Twentieth Congress ... made official doctrine of Stalin's revisionist practices [as] the new program discards the Leninist conception of imperialism and its corresponding revolutionary class struggle policies.
Andres Laiapea connects this with "the exile of many dissidents, especially Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn",[35] though whereas Laiapea writes that "[t]he rehabilitation of Stalin went hand in hand with the establishment of a personality cult around Brezhnev",[35] political sociologist Viktor Zaslavsky characterizes Brezhnev's period as one of "neo-Stalinist compromise" as the essentials of the political atmosphere associated with Stalin were retained without a personality cult.
It isn't so easy to give up the inheritance we received from Stalinism and Neo-Stalinism, when people were turned into cogs in the wheel, and those in power made all the decisions for them".
[43][44] Formed in 1992 by anti-Gorbachev hardliners of the CPSU, CPRF became a vehement opponent of 1990s privatization policies and has denounced the current boundaries of Russian Federation as "unnatural".
Blaming Russia's decline on Western capitalism, CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov proposes the revival of Soviet Union to restore Russian prestige.
[45][46] Russia under Vladimir Putin underwent an extensive state-backed programme of Re-Stalinization; through mass media, cinema, academia, educational institutions, military propaganda and historiography.
Sociologist Dina Khapaeva asserts that a "social consensus" has emerged amongst the majority of Russian citizens, academics and authorities in rehabilitating Stalin.
[65][66] Putin said at the conference that the new manual will "help instill young people with a sense of pride in Russia", and he posited that Stalin's purges pale in comparison to the United States' atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
[68][69] In September 2009, the Education Ministry of Russia announced that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, a book once banned in the Soviet Union for the detailed account on the system of prison camps, became required reading for Russian high-school students.
[70][71] In 2009, it was reported that the Russian government was drawing up plans to criminalize statements and acts that deny the Soviet Union's victory over fascism in World War II or its role in liberating Eastern Europe.
[72] In May 2009, President Dmitry Medvedev described the Soviet Union during the war as "our country" and set up the Historical Truth Commission to act against what the Kremlin terms falsifications of Russian history.
[citation needed] The resolution called for a day of remembrance for victims of both Stalinism and Nazism to be marked every 23 August, the date in 1939 when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of neutrality with a secret protocol that divided parts of Central and Eastern Europe between their spheres of influence.
Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign relations committee of Russia's lower house of parliament, called the resolution "nothing but an attempt to rewrite the history of World War II".
[77] At the end of August 2009 a gilded slogan, a fragment of the Soviet national anthem was re-inscribed at the Moscow Metro's Kursky station beneath eight socialist realist statues, reading: "Stalin reared us on loyalty to the people.
Other human rights organizations and survivors of Stalin's repressions called for the decorations to be removed in a letter to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.
[80] In 2005, Communist politician Gennady Zyuganov said that Russia "should once again render honor to Stalin for his role in building socialism and saving human civilization from the Nazi plague".
In a December 2008 interview, he was asked a question: "Dmitry Yurievich, what do you think, is the new wave of 'unveiling the horrors of Stalinism' on the TV related to the approaching consequences of the crisis or is it merely another [mental] exacerbation?".
"[85] In 2016, political scientist Thomas Sherlock claimed that Russia has pulled back somewhat on its neo-Stalinist policies, commenting: "The Kremlin is unwilling to develop and impose on society historical narratives which promote chauvinism, hypernationalism, and re-Stalinization.
"[86] Sameera Khan, a former Miss New Jersey and reporter for RT, made a series of tweets glorifying Stalin and the gulag system and calling for his return.
