Сталиндік идеялар мен басқарудың жаңаруы

Movement to revive Stalinist ideas and governance

Neo Stalinism is the promotion of positive views of Joseph Stalin's role in history, the partial re establishing of Stalin's policies on certain or all issues, and nostalgia for the Stalinist period. Neo Stalinism overlaps significantly with neo Sovietism and Soviet nostalgia. Various definitions of the term have been given over the years. 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. Eurasianist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, an influential neo Stalinist ideologue in Russian elite circles, has praised Stalin as the “greatest personality in Russian history”, comparing him to Ivan the Terrible who established the Tsardom of Russia.

The American Trotskyist Hal Draper used "neo Stalinism" in 1948 to refer to a new political ideology—new development in Soviet policy, which he defined as a reactionary trend whose beginning was associated with the Popular front period of the mid 1930s, writing: "The ideologists of neo Stalinism are merely the tendrils shot ahead by the phenomena – fascism and Stalinism – which outline the social and political form of a neo barbarism". During the 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) distinguished between Stalinism and neo Stalinism in that "[t]he Soviet leaders have not reverted to two extremes of Stalin's ruleone man dictatorship and mass terror. For this reason, their policy deserves the label "neo Stalinist" rather than "Stalinist". Katerina Clark, describing an anti Khrushchev, pro Stalin current in Soviet literary world during the 1960s, described the work of "neo Stalinist" writers as harking back to "the Stalin era and its leaders as a time of unity, strong rule and national honor". According to historian Roy Medvedev, writing in 1975, the term describes the rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin, identification with him and the associated political system, nostalgia for the Stalinist period in Russia's history, restoration of Stalinist policies and a return to the administrative terror of the Stalinist period while avoiding some of the worst excesses. Academic Katerina Clark defines Neo Stalinism as praising "the Stalin era and its leaders as a time of unity, strong rule and national honor". Political geographer Denis J. B. Shaw, writing in 1999, considered the Soviet Union as neo Stalinist until the post 1985 period of transition to capitalism. He identified neo Stalinism as a political system with planned economy and highly developed military–industrial complex. Philosopher Frederick Copleston, writing in 2003, 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". According to former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, using the term in 2006, it more broadly refers to a moderated Stalinist state without large scale repressions, but with persecution of political opponents and total control of all political activities in the country.

In his monograph Reconsidering Stalinism, historian Henry Reichman discusses differing and evolving perspectives on the use of the term Stalinism, saying that "in scholarly usage 'Stalinism' describes here a movement, there an economic, political, or social system, elsewhere a type of political practice or belief system". He references historian Stephen Cohen's work reassessing Soviet history after Stalin as a "continuing tension between anti Stalinist reformism and neo Stalinist conservatism", observing that such a characterization requires a "coherent" definition of Stalinismwhose essential features Cohen leaves undefined.

Some historians and political scientists have classified the régime of Romania under Nicolae Ceaușescu (1965–1989) as "neo Stalinist". Albanian leader Enver Hoxha (in power 1943 to 1985) described himself as neo Stalinist, and his ideology – Hoxhaism – features some Stalinist elements. After Stalin's death (1953), Hoxha denounced Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev and accused him of revisionism in the mid 1950s – the differences eventually caused Albania to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact in 1968. 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. When Soviet officials criticized him for his brutality, Amin replied "Comrade Stalin showed us how to build socialism in a backward country." Its policies shocked the country and contributed to starting the Soviet–Afghan War of 1979–1989 and subsequent Afghan Civil War. Some Western sources have characterised North Korea as a neo Stalinist state; North Korea adopted a modified Marxism–Leninism into Juche as its official ideology in the 1970s, with references to Marxism–Leninism altogether scrapped from the revised state constitution in 1992, following by references to communism in 2009. Ba'athist Syria has long been considered to be a neo Stalinist state; when Hafez al Assad established a police state modelled after Stalin's rule during 1970s. 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. Assad dynasty ruled Syria by vicious methods of violence throughout its reign, characterized by state terror, massacres, aerial bombing of cities, military clampdowns, etc. ; which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Some socialist groups like the Trotskyist Alliance for Workers' Liberty characterise modern China as "neo Stalinist". By the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, Turkmenistan's Saparmurat Niyazov non communist regime was sometimes considered a neo Stalinist one, especially in respect of Niyazov's cult of personality. Islam Karimov's non communist authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan from 1989 to 2016 has also been described as "neo Stalinist".

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. Khrushchev gave his four hour speech, "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", condemning the Stalin regime. Historian Robert V. Daniels holds that "neo Stalinism prevailed politically for more than a quarter of a century after Stalin himself left the scene". 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", 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." American broadcasts into Europe during the late 1950s described a political struggle between the "old Stalinists" and "the neo Stalinist Khrushchev". In October 1964, Khrushchev was replaced by Leonid Brezhnev, who remained in office until his death in November 1982. During his reign, Stalin's controversies were de emphasized. Andres Laiapea connects this with "the exile of many dissidents, especially Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn", though whereas Laiapea writes that "[t]he rehabilitation of Stalin went hand in hand with the establishment of a personality cult around Brezhnev", According to Alexander Dubček, "[t]he advent of Brezhnev’s regime heralded the advent of neo Stalinism, and the measures taken against Czechoslovakia in 1968 were the final consolidation of the neo Stalinist forces in the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, and other countries". American political scientist Seweryn Bialer has described Soviet policy as turning towards neo Stalinism after Brezhnev's death. After Mikhail Gorbachev took over in March 1985, he introduced the policy of glasnost in public discussions to liberalize the Soviet system. Within six years, the Soviet Union fell apart. Still, Gorbachev admitted in 2000 that "[e]ven now in Russia we have the same problem. 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". Gorbachev's domestic policies have been described as neo Stalinist by some Western sources.

The most fervent proponents of neo Stalinism and rehabilitation of Stalin in post Soviet Russia include the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). With the approval of Putin government, CPRF has installed hundreds of monuments glorifying Stalin all across Russia since the 2000s. CPRF has been organizing annual ceremonies at the grave of Stalin in Kremlin Wall Necropolis to commemorate his birthday. 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. The party advocates communist Eurasianism, which believes in the construction of a new "socialist Eurasian homeland" through re incorporation of post Soviet countries; imagining the new state as the harbinger "for remaking history" and lead the Socialist Bloc once again. Through its embracal of Russian nationalism, the party portrays communism as an organic expression or communal soul ("sobornost") of "the age old Russian traditions of community and collectivism" which distinguishes Russian World from the Western world and its "bourgeois values and market individualism". CPRF believes that the revival of Russia's "Derzhava" (super power status) is dependent on instilling Russians with Soviet patriotism and neo Stalinism; marked by glorification of Bolshevik Revolution and technological prowess of Soviet Union, promotion of myths around "Great Patriotic War" and adulation of the Stalinist era. 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. In 2014, Russian Duma passed a controversial "memory law" criminalizing discussions of atrocities committed during the Stalinist era or making comparisons between Nazism and Stalinism, under the pretexts of combating Neo Nazism and defending the "historical memory of events which took place during the Second World War". Despite strong condemnation from international historical societies across the world, the bill was passed and inserted as an article into the Russian Criminal Code. The bill was supported by the ruling United Russia Party and allied Communist Party. Various busts and portraits of Stalin have been installed in territories controlled by Russian backed separatists in Eastern Ukraine. Russian Communist Party has been one of the biggest backers of invasion of Ukraine ordered by Putin in 2022, viewing the invasion as being aligned with their neo Stalinist world view. As of 2008, more than half of Russians view Stalin positively and many support restoration of his monuments either dismantled by leaders or destroyed by rioting Russians during the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. According to the Levada polling centre, Stalin's popularity marks have tripled among Russians in the last twenty years and the trend had accelerated since Vladimir Putin came to power. In April 2019, a Levada center poll revealed that 70% of Russians approve of Stalin's role in Russian history, the highest ever recorded, and that 51% viewed Stalin in a positive light. According to Andrew Osborn, statues of Stalin "have begun to reappear" and a museum in his honor has been opened in Volgograd (former Stalingrad). In December 2013, Putin described Stalin as no worse than the "cunning" English 17th century military dictator Oliver Cromwell.

In June 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin organized a conference for history teachers to promote a high school teachers manual called A Modern History of Russia: 1945–2006: A Manual for History Teachers, which according to Irina Flige (office director of human rights organization Memorial) portrays Stalin as a cruel yet successful leader who "acted rationally". She claims it justifies Stalin's terror as an "instrument of development". 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. At a memorial for Stalin's victims, Putin said that while Russians should "keep alive the memory of tragedies of the past, we should focus on all that is best in the country". The official policy of the Russian Federation is that teachers and schools are free to choose history textbooks from the list of the admitted ones, which includes a total of forty eight history text books for grade school and twenty four history textbooks by various authors for high school. 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. Prior to that, Russian students studied Solzhenitsyn's short story Matryonin dvor and his novella One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, an account of a single day in the life of a gulag prisoner.

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. 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. On 3 July 2009, Russia's delegation at the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe's (OSCE) annual parliamentary meeting stormed out after a resolution was passed equating the roles of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in starting World War II, drafted by delegates from Lithuania and Slovenia. 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". Alexander Kozlovsky, the head of the Russian delegation, called the resolution an "insulting anti Russian attack" and added that "[t]hose who place Nazism and Stalinism on the same level forget that it is the Stalin era Soviet Union that made the biggest sacrifices and the biggest contribution to liberating Europe from fascism". Only eight out of 385 assembly members voted against the resolution.

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. He inspired us to labour and heroism". The slogan had been removed in the 1950s during Nikita Khrushchev's period of de Stalinization. Another restored slogan reads: "For the Motherland! For Stalin!". Restoring the slogans was ordered by the head of the metro Dmitry Gayev. He explained his decision with restoring the historic view of the station: "My attitude towards this story is simple: this inscription was at the station Kurskaya since its foundation, and it will stay there". The chairman of a human rights group Memorial Arseny Roginsky stated: "This is the fruit of creeping re Stalinization and they [the authorities] want to use his name as a symbol of a powerful authoritarian state which the whole world is afraid of". 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. 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". Zyuganov has said "Great Stalin does not need rehabilitation" and has proposed changing the name of Volgograd back to Stalingrad. In 2010, the Communist leader stated: "Today the greatness of Stalin's era is self evident even to his most furious haters We liberated the whole world!". In 2008, Dmitry Puchkov accused the authorities of raising a wave of anti Stalin propaganda to distract the attention of the population from topical troubles. 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?". He replied: "The wave is being raised to distract opinion of the population from the up to date troubles. You don't have to think of your pension, you don't have to think of the education, what matters are the horrors of Stalinism". Russian writer Sergey Kara Murza believes that there is a trend to demonize Russia that is common not only in Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic, but in Russia as well. He contends that it is a good business and that it was a good business previously to demonize the Soviet Union: "Why do we need to take offense against Poles, if we in our country have the same (and for us – sufficiently more dangerous and hazardous) cohort of pundits, philosophers, historians who enjoy the maximal favourable regime set by the state and do the same things as Poles do?" 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. Although such an agenda has some support among incumbent elites and in society, it remains subordinate Instead, the regime is now extending support to a critical assessment of the Soviet era, including Stalinism. This emerging criticism of the Soviet past serves a number of important goals of the leadership, including re engagement with the West. To this end, the Kremlin recently approved new history textbooks critical of the Soviet past as well as a significant program that memorializes the victims of Soviet repressions."

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. Khan was harshly criticized for expressing these views, including by RT itself, and the controversy led to her apologizing and being suspended from the network. Star Wars Andor series showrunner Tony Gilroy based his storytelling about the character Cassian Andor on Joseph Stalin. Of the star of the series, Diego Luna, Gilroy remarked to Rolling Stone, "If you look at a picture of Young Stalin, isn't he glamorous? He looks like Diego!"