In Stalin’s Shadow

THE LAST TIME the city of Gori made international news was in 2008, during the war between Russia and Georgia, when the tiny city, which sits at the crossroads of not just the west and east of Georgia but also the west and east of the world, was shelled by Vladimir Putin’s army. After that war, Russia occupied 20 per cent of Georgia’s territory in what was a precursor to its occupation of 30 per cent of Ukraine’s territory a decade-and-a-half later. Interestingly though, Gori was not occupied. Perhaps Putin was showing his deference to history’s most famous Georgian, Iosif Dzhugashvili, born in Gori in 1878. He was the only Georgian to rule Russia under the nom de guerre Joseph Stalin. When history is written, will Putin’s legacy mirror Stalin’s?

The city of Gori has a grand museum for its enfant terrible. Notwithstanding the museum, Stalin had a complicated relationship with his homeland. Georgians were not spared the ruthless purges of his time in power. However, Georgia was the one country that erupted into protests when Nikita Khrushchev began his de-Stalinisation drive. In present-day Georgia, which has a fraught relationship with Russia, there is some pride that it was a Georgian that was at the helm when Russia/Soviet Union moved from being a poor, agricultural country to a powerful industrialised one and became one of the two global superpowers. In the present, the city of Gori is happy with the tourism dollars that accompany those curious about Stalin.

Putin’s trajectory is not dissimilar to Stalin’s. He inherited a weak Russia, its economy destroyed, and its territorial integrity uncertain. He brought order and strength after chaos

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The son of a cobbler, Stalin spent his formative years in Georgia, though mostly in the capital Tbilisi where he even studied in a seminary before he discovered atheist revolutionary fervour. While other early leaders of the Bolsheviks such as Lenin and Trotsky were intellectuals, Stalin was a man of action, who owed his rise to being Lenin’s enforcer.

When he became leader after Lenin’s death, he would rule for 29 years, the longest-serving leader of the Soviet Union. His successful industrialisation drive would come at a great human cost. By the time he signed the non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1939, it seemed like there was no salvaging his awful reputation. But a turn of events during World War II, when Hitler invaded Russia, opened a window for Stalin. In the end, you could argue whether it was Russia’s winter or the Red Army which defeated Hitler’s Nazis, but the involvement of the Soviet Union in World War II turned the tide for the Allies as Germany had to battle on two fronts.

At least one-third of the museum in Gori is dedicated to World War II. There are more than a handful of photographs of Stalin sitting with Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at Yalta. Finally, Stalin had found himself on the right side of history. The Western media called him ‘Uncle Joe’ out of affection. He had helped defeat the greater evil.

Stalin’s victory even brought the Soviet Union an entirely new sphere of influence in East Europe. The communist revolution had new geographies. But a new global image didn’t change the man. Like all tyrants, he was self-obsessed, insecure, and wedded to his ways. It didn’t take long for him to demote Marshal Zhukov who had led the Red Army to the conquest of Berlin. And to subjugate East Europe to a subordinate, colony status.

Putin’s trajectory is not dissimilar to Stalin’s. He inherited a weak Russia, its economy destroyed, and its territorial integrity uncertain. He brought order and strength after chaos. Like Stalin, he is not an intellectual or visionary or a man of great charisma. He is an enforcer. He knows how to get things done. People fear rather than love him. Putin hasn’t quite had a moment of redemption like Stalin after World War II. Perhaps the closest he came was when his forces battled ISIS in Syria. There may yet come a time when a common enemy—mostly likely an Islamist formation— may bring the West and Russia on the same side. But, for now, his expansionism in Russia’s neighbourhood has created a situation that mirrors the Cold War in Europe in Stalin’s time.

In the last hundred years, Iosif Dzhugashvili and Vladimir Putin are the only two persons to have ruled Russia for more than 20 years. Russia will probably give Putin a grand museum, but like Stalin, history’s judgment is unlikely to be glorious.

About The Author

Dhiraj Nayyar

Dhiraj Nayyar is chief economist, Vedanta Ltd, and the author of Modi and Markets: Arguments for Transformation

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