'I'm almost sure that Putin is a Stalinist, that he loves everything Soviet’: Russian historian Andrey Zubov
Stalin's heirs
By Mikhail Sokolov
March 05, 2019
66 years ago, on March 5, 1953, Generalissimo Joseph Stalin, whose conscience has millions of victims of the Holodomor, terror, concentration camps, bloody wars of the USSR, died. How do the Russian authorities use Stalinist methods, and the opponents of Vladimir Putin's power from among the communists rely on the legacy of Generalissimo? Why do Russian citizens still call Stalin to help, "restore order", defeat corruption and subdue bureaucracy? How does propaganda work in favor of Stalin and Putin? We are discussing with Andrey Zubov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Deputy Chairman of the People's Freedom Party. Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Deputy of the State Duma of Russia, Candidate of Historical Sciences Dmitry Novikov, Professor of Kyiv University, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Vladimir Sergiychuk.
The program is hosted by Mikhail Sokolov.
Video version of the program
Mikhail Sokolov: On March 5, 1953, 66 years ago, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died. Today, about 300 people went out to honor the memory of their leader on Red Square. Stalin's fans carry wreaths and flowers to the grave.
Vladimir Kashin: The more years pass after his death, the brighter and more prominent the greatness of the deeds that were committed by the Soviet people under the leadership of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin becomes for all of us.
Mikhail Sokolov: Secretary of the CPRF Central Committee, Duma deputy and academician in the past of the Agricultural, and now the Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Kashin, spoke.
How do you explain the fact that Joseph Stalin remains a cult figure for the masses even in the time of Vladimir Putin, thanks to what?
Andrey Zubov: I think that the main reason is that Stalin is not exposed, the whole amount of his crimes is not shown to people. Yes, there was a lot of talk about it in the 1990s, but now the archives are being closed again. Now they allow Stalin to sing the osanna. All this together leads people to the unfortunate conclusion that a choice must be made between Putin's current regime and Stalin, and the choice is made in favor of Stalin, whom, of course, today's people no longer remember as a real historical figure, but remember as a legend, and Putin is known as a real historical figure, who, judging by sociology, people like less and less.
I think there are actually three reasons. The first reason is the cutting off of all Russian history in general, people practically do not know what happened before Lenin and Stalin, it is studied at school extremely poorly. And that story is the history of some mythical state, like the Roman Empire, which has nothing to do with today's Italy, except for territorial. The list of kings, and it is not clear in what other world Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, Pushkin lived, also in some airless space. That is, the Russian society with its problems, with its troubles is practically unknown, and with its successes.
That is, life begins with the "Soviet system". Soviet is the same fiction as most fictions of the communist era, there was no Soviet system, but that's another conversation.
The second reason is that moral guidelines are lost. Most society does not understand that the state exists for them, that they do not exist for the state, but the state is the system they have created for their comfortable, safe, rich life. This is absolutely knocked out of people's consciousness, so people treat power as some kind of power beyond their worthwhile and admire its greatness, its successes. Therefore, for them, Stalin, under whom it seems that great success was really achieved, he evokes positive feelings. In fact, it is clear that man has never lived so badly in Russia after Ivan the Terrible as under Stalin.
And finally, in addition to this moral point, the third point is also that Stalin is falsely deified. Much of what can be said about him is not said.
For example, Yuri Dmitriev is duging up mass shooting ditches in Sandarmokh, as a result, Yuri Dmitriev is accused of being a pedophile, a respected elderly man is imprisoned.
The current government is absolutely akin to Stalin. The Cheka-KGB-NKVD's favorite brainchild of Stalin, which he destroyed, but recreated every time anew, it is still in power in the country. People are fooling their heads. When people find out the whole truth, when the whole array of Russian history opens up to them, when they get a moral dom, that they are the masters of life, of course, Stalin will have the same sad fate as all the tyrants of the past. Normal people will remember with horror and disgust.
Mikhail Sokolov: I noticed once again, going to a large bookstore, that everything is still full of books about Stalin, they are well exhibited, which is not free, of course, is done, there have also been enough films on television in recent years, glorifying Stalin or, for example, rehabilitating Lawrence Beria, as a major statesman outstanding, lied. At the same time, Putin himself does not personally glorify Stalin. Can we say that this is such a very cunning state policy: such a Stalinist background is created - there is Stalin, a dictator, a winner in the war, but bloody. And on the other hand, there is Vladimir Putin, who seems to be not a bloody dictator and lets him live, and this is such a background for him.
Andrey Zubov: I can hardly imagine. What you described is a very good intellectual model, but I have very little faith that it is seriously deliberate and given in the Kremlin ideology. Rather, I think otherwise. In fact, I'm almost sure that Putin is a Stalinist, that he loves everything Soviet, that he doesn't know and doesn't think anything else, except again, maybe the list of tsars. I know for sure that it was he who demanded that Yakunin return the name "Leningradsky" to the station, which was a Nikolaev, as you know, station for several hours, that he forbade even the Medinsky and Yaroslavl Duma to rename the city of Tutaev to Romanov-Borisoglebsk. Don't touch the Soviet past. This is his past, he loves him. He loves this past, I even suspect that he got his name from someone whose cook was his grandfather. That's why I think he's just trying to please them. And this is very close to the entire KGB apparatus, which now rules the country. After all, this is practically Stalin's device.
Mikhail Sokolov: We are in touch with Dmitry Novikov, member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Deputy Chairman of the Communist Party.
This is a mourning date for you, your colleagues carry wreaths and flowers to Stalin's monument on Red Square, to his grave. Why? Do you think Stalin is relevant for modern Russia?
Dmitry Novikov: This date is really memorable for us. Today was another day when we came to Red Square to honor the memory of this outstanding statesman. There were a lot of people, as always, it was about thousands of people. When the column of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation came to Red Square, Stalin's grave was already covered with flowers - this means that people came both before us and after us. There is every reason for this, you can get acquainted with the surveys of various sociological services, make sure that Stalin is popular today, Stalin is in demand today, we honor Stalin today. In this regard, much of what was said by the guest in the studio does not correspond to reality, including the story with the city of Tutaev. The position of our party, which helped the residents to self-organize, to hold a referendum, it was she who allowed the renaming not to take place, and so everything was already ready. Even when the referendum was announced, the authorities of the region hoped that the majority would come, speak out, a special information campaign was conducted for this purpose.
Mikhail Sokolov: I must correct you: there was no referendum there, there was a sociological survey.
Dmitry Novikov: There was a survey, the results of which were taken into account in the state authorities. A group of State Duma deputies representing our faction went there, we know well how the events developed, we can tell you all this.
As for Stalin's experience, it is clear that it is impossible to repeat this experience today, there are not many factors for this, the situation is fundamentally different. Secondly, in order to repeat Stalin's experience, it is necessary for Stalin himself, today there is no such figure, we live in a fundamentally different socio-economic, socio-political system. Experience, however, this must be studied, it is necessary to understand what caused the events that took place in the Stalin era, without this we will not understand anything in our history.
Mikhail Sokolov: Probably, it is now impossible to shoot a million people in two years, as in 1937-38.
Dmitry Novikov: First of all, less, of course. I wouldn't want us to repeat Solzhenitsyn's nonsense about some 80 million now.
Mikhail Sokolov: In this case, I name the number of victims of the Great Terror, it is definitely taken into account.
Dmitry Novikov: If you look at the number of sentences that were handed down during the entire period of Stalin's leadership of the country, compare it with the losses of the 1990s, when from the moment of the destruction of the Soviet Union to the present day, we have lost from 8 to 29 million human lives according to various estimates. This means that, probably, today's system is also repressive in the social sense, it leads to the fact that people die and not always even in connection with the activities of law enforcement agencies and internal affairs bodies.
Mikhail Sokolov: How are you going to apply Stalin's experience in modern Russia?
Dmitry Novikov: It is necessary to understand why Stalin is popular, why according to all polls he is called the most outstanding figure in our country by a huge number of people. The fact is that today social justice is in great demand in our country, and Stalin ensured movement along this path, there were very serious successes. Today, the development of our country is in great demand. Over the years of industrialization, 9 thousand modern enterprises have been built, as a result of which we met the Great Patriotic War with the necessary weapons and were able to defeat fascism. Stalin's experience is in demand in the fact that it is necessary to be able to learn how to ensure the security of your country, protect its independence and sovereignty in the modern global world, when Washington considers any country a zone of its vital interests, interferes in its activities, the latest example of Venezuela once again clearly shows this. Again, Stalin's experience is in demand, at that time the Soviet country demonstrated how it is possible and necessary to protect itself, to ensure the security of the fatherland.
Mikhail Sokolov: So you are going to restore a closed country that threatens the whole world, that spends huge money on weapons, which carries out collectivization at the cost of hunger?
Dmitry Novikov: Let's not repeat traditional liberal stamps. Because today we have a country, there is a state called the People's Republic of China, which no one can accuse either of the Gulag or of any victims, but nevertheless, it is effectively developing under the red flag, it solves these tasks: the tasks of ensuring justice, the tasks of ensuring the development of its country, its security.
Mikhail Sokolov: So you're still for Deng Xiaoping's Chinese experience, not for Stalin's, right?
Dmitry Novikov: If we take a closer look at the history of the communist movement, it has offered a lot of different ways to solve emerging problems. But the interests of the person, the interests of the workers, and not the interests of the oligarchy, which the ruling regime in the Russian Federation puts today, have always been at the center.
Mikhail Sokolov: Why do most Russians who sympathize with, as you think, Stalin, vote not for your party, but for Putin's party, for "United Russia"?
Dmitry Novikov: I am a participant in many election campaigns, unfortunately, I can state the fact that not only the voting results are often falsified, but also the electoral process itself is falsified. If at the start of the election campaign you do not have equal opportunities, if the "party of power" has a predominant influence in the leading media, if the possibilities of holding meetings with voters and various other mechanisms of manipulation are limited, then we cannot say that the results of the elections that are recorded today necessarily correspond to the real will of citizens.
Mikhail Sokolov: I suspect that the only thing that will unite you with a prominent figure of the modern communist movement is the assessment of elections and election fraud.
Andrey Zubov: Absolutely. I was even somehow happy to hear that the communists also agree with this.
Mikhail Sokolov: About ensuring social justice under Comrade Stalin?
Andrey Zubov: Here, I think, everything is absolutely clear.
Mikhail Sokolov: I really liked that there were no repressions and the Gulag in the People's Republic of China. It still exists, there are about a million political prisoners, all kinds of restrictions are different with the help of computers and so on for people's behavior, and I think they told about the victims of Maoism even in Soviet times.
Andrey Zubov: "Big Leap" - 20 million dead people.
Mikhail Sokolov: That's what worries me, there is an active, rather aggressive party of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation headed by the eternal Gennady Zyuganov, whose popularity is now growing against the background of the falling rating of "United Russia", Vladimir Putin as a party that tells tales about social justice under Stalin's rule and that there were not so many victims of repression. What to do about it?
Andrey Zubov: I think that in Stalin's time there was such a concept as "socially close elements". Various thieves, robbers were a socially close element to the regime. Even in the camps, they were treated quite differently than the political ones. It seems to me that the communists and the current Putin government are also socially close elements, in fact they are just twin brothers. It's no coincidence that the same Putin says that he keeps his party ticket somewhere.
I think that the only thing that will change the attitude of society is to reveal to society not only the historical truth.
Mikhail Sokolov: They will tell you: "you are all lying".
Andrey Zubov: They can say anything. In the United States, a huge number of people believe in unidentified flying objects, in "green men". This is a specific circle of people, there are such people everywhere.
We believe in Stalin. No Gulags, no Butov training grounds, no Sandarmokhs will convince them. As a rule, these are people whose ancestors did not suffer or, on the contrary, they killed. Because those who have legends about the repression of their grandfathers, their great-grandfathers in the house, they are, of course, far from so open to this communist propaganda.
But the most important thing that our party has always tried to do is to explain to people that it is necessary to evaluate the power from the point of view of how it is subordinate to you, how it serves your will. It's not the "social justice" that Stalin invented for you, but how we want to rule the country ourselves, we vote, we win those for whom the majority of the population win, these people control the process.
Mikhail Sokolov: So they will tell you: "United Russia" wins the elections in the most honest way, so it rules the country.
Andrey Zubov: That's right, but she doesn't win in an honest way. This victory is in a dishonest way, in which the communist colleague Dmitry Novikov does not even doubt, it indicates that in fact they are losing. If they really won, why would they carry out falsifications, why would there be horror of the presidential administration before all the last rounds of elections?
Incredible pressure, when in the same Yaroslavl region in the elections to the Yaroslavl Regional Duma our party is removed from the elections 4 days before the elections by the decision of the Supreme Court. Because we, of course, did not win, but we were gaining confidently 15% of the votes there, respectively, we would have, including single-mandates, about 5 representatives in the Yaroslavl Duma, and we could already submit our agenda.
Mikhail Sokolov: Boris Nemtsov worked there and showed how you can work.
Andrey Zubov: This is what indicates that today we have 5 people out of 50, and tomorrow, by leading the right campaign, we will win the Yaroslavl Duma, so they are afraid. With all truths and untruths, they remove from the elections, where they are afraid of communists, they also remove the communists. But the communists are a controlled party, alas, Gennady Andreevich is a good friend of Vladimir Vladimirovich, so they find a common language in everything.
Mikhail Sokolov: Especially in matters of foreign policy - this is also anti-Americanism, the fight against the so-called globalism. There are quite clear parallels: Stalin at one time waged various hybrid wars, created all kinds of people's Soviet republics, in Iran, for example, they tried. And so, please, the current war with Ukraine also somehow resembles the events of 1918-19, when the Bolsheviks in Kharkiv created a government, fought with Kiev, with the Ukrainian People's Republic on behalf of this government.
Andrey Zubov: I think that the main feature of all this power, Stalinist, Leninist and the current Putin's, is an absolute lie, they lie all the time and do not consider lies something bad, but believe that this is politics. It's just from a very bad education and from absolute spoiling of the soul. Because in fact, a self-respecting person doesn't lie. "We are not there", "there is no Russian army in Crimea". And then it's there, that's how it happened.
There are no Bolsheviks in Northern Iran, and then we find out that whole steamships went with the Bolsheviks. That is, lies, lies and lies. Short legs are a lie - that's an old folk saying.
I am sure that this relapse of the Soviets, which is now taking place, will definitely end. It must end as obviously, as we can't imagine now that crowds of people go to Hitler's non-existent grave in Germany, put, I don't know what color, carnations.
Mikhail Sokolov: Also red, the color of their flag was red.
Andrey Zubov: With a black swastika in a white circle. I don't think it's possible for real. I will imagine that if such masters were found, there would be no law in Germany assuming responsibility for propaganda of Nazism, then people would be torn apart.
Unfortunately, something completely different is happening here. You know that today two young people decided to hold a counter-demonstration near Stalin's grave and they were taken to the police.
Mikhail Sokolov: They just threw broken carnations.
Andrey Zubov: They said "burn with fire, murderer of women and children". They were taken to the police for this, although a normal expression of civil protest.
Mikhail Sokolov: Evgeny Suchkov and Olga Savchenko, young people who protest against the glorification of Stalin. Really well done.
Andrey Zubov: Honor and praise to them. I already wrote about it on Facebook today, I really respect their act.
Mikhail Sokolov: Those people who come to put carnations on Stalin, they live in such mythical ideas about the past. Let's see a fragment where a person explains why he came.
- It was during the time of Comrade Stalin that our Soviet country made a decisive throw forward. The current bourgeois authorities talk as much about modernization and so on, but if they followed the Lenin-Stalin course, we believe that our country would have reached a leading position long ago.
Mikhail Sokolov: Andrey Borisovich, what would you say to this young man who lives with this myth about the great successes of Stalin and Stalinism?
Andrey Zubov: First of all, what is "our country". Our country is not an abstraction, our country is people. Stalin killed people en masse, Lenin killed people en masse, by the millions. Civil war, Holodomor, Gulag, 1937, total repressions against all religions. The country is people. If someone destroys people, not piece by piece some bandits, hangs criminals, but en masse, then it means that he is the enemy of the country. Of course, a huge number of scientists, writers, and just decent wonderful people, working peasants died. This is the crime. And we are told: our country has achieved something.
Mikhail Sokolov: Atomic bomb.
Andrey Zubov: Our country, unfortunately, has achieved only one thing, as Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev said, who had access to all archives, as a member of the Politburo, he said that we have achieved only one success in one thing - it is in corps production. He told me this personally, wrote it in his book. It's true.
That the atomic bomb, read any memoirs, the same Olga Bergholts, after the war she goes to the Novgorod village and sees how women plow on themselves, miscarriages because of this, they can't give birth, there are no men.
I think that Russia had a real rapid, dynamic development just in the so-called post-reform pre-revolutionary period, which ended with the October Bolshevik coup. After that, stagnation, murder and squeezing all the juices out of people began. That's why we can't get up now, that's why we tolerate any power, that the people are broken, their spine was broken by Lenin in the 1920s and Stalin in the 1930s, the current government uses it.
Mikhail Sokolov: We are now in touch with a professor from Kiev, academician of the National Academy of Ukraine, historian Vladimir Sergiychuk. I would like to ask you about the decommunization that took place in Ukraine. From the point of view of Ukrainian law, today comrade Stalin is a criminal?
Vladimir Sergiychuk: Of course, it was announced by such a court decision. That is, at the legal level, all this is formalized in connection with the organization of the Holodomor, the genocide of 1932-33.
Mikhail Sokolov: Can't anyone try to glorify Stalin at your official, semi-official level?
Vladimir Sergiychuk: No, of course. No one is going to declare mourning in connection with Stalin's death, because there are a lot of historical facts that speak of his personal instructions that led to the death of many people.
One example that few people know. In the spring of 1933 in Dnepropetrovsk, the then secretary of the regional committee Khataevich collects the asset of advanced foremen of the collective farms of the region, and they make a decision: hunger is everywhere, people barely hold on, and it is necessary to harvest, the harvest has grown well. They adopted an appeal to have those areas of crops in each collective farm that ripen earlier, to mow them faster and give bread to hungry people, so that these people gained strength.
When Stalin was notified of this, Stalin erupted with terrible anger, gave the secretary such that he was forced to apologize at the plenum of the objual committee and says how wise Stalin was, that he noticed that we were doing wrong, that we wanted to give the hungry people grain. Imagine, the harvest has been going on for two months, and people can't get bread to save themselves, because Stalin was enraged by the fact that they wanted to give the first grain. That is, this is his personal instruction.
We can say that the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) decided not to let the hungry peasants of Ukraine and Kuban to Russia or Belarus for bread, and here Stalin's personal instruction is not to give the hungry bread.
Mikhail Sokolov: In your opinion, how was your decommunization, this "Leninfall"? Was it useful for this, for example, science, for society?
Vladimir Sergiychuk: Society knows now that it does not bow to the leader who brought so much trouble and grief to the Ukrainian people.
Mikhail Sokolov: For you, as a scientist, what was discovered by almost all the archives, archives of special services, what was revealed about the essence of the new communist regime?
Vladimir Sergiychuk: This is a criminal regime directed against humanity.
Mikhail Sokolov: Now could any party stand up with the ideas of social justice, modernization, based on Stalin's ideas?
Vladimir Sergiychuk: We used to try communists, but now they are no longer in the political arena.
Mikhail Sokolov: So this topic of speculation on the Soviet past has closed, the political field has not suffered from this?
Vladimir Sergiychuk: Of course. All parties are now talking about social justice on a national basis. They are oriented as they were oriented before, but only without those components that were inherent in the communists.
Mikhail Sokolov: How do you assess the Ukrainian experience of decommunization, which took place after the Maidan, during this five years?
Andrey Zubov: In general, I evaluate it very positively, although there was still no systemic decommunization in Ukraine. The fact is that the fact that they overthrew the monuments to Lenin, Kirov, Petrovsky and other scondrels is very good, the fact that all the archives were opened is simply beyond praise, it is an absolutely necessary thing. I know how many of my colleagues are now working in the archives of Ukraine, studying the NKVD of Russia, because everything is closed in Russia. Naturally, there was a common system of archives, instructions, information letters. There are a lot of things to find in Ukraine now.
The essence of communism was to conquer all people, to make them slaves. To do this, it was necessary to take away all their property. Property makes a person free, the Bolsheviks took property first. Stalin completed this process during collectivization, turned the whole society into a society of slaves who fed from the hand of the leader. From the secretaries of the regional committees to the last village freak. It was necessary, of course, to do what was done in Central Europe, to introduce an institution of property rights. But this was not done in Ukraine, unfortunately. Although in fact, especially in Western Ukraine, it could have been done very simply.
I think this is the next stage of decommunization, it is not complete. Only when the people of Ukraine, like Russia, gain the property of their ancestors, only then will they be able to become subjects of democratic active action, and having become a subject of democratic action, they will build a democratic country. For now, unfortunately, I'm not the judge of Ukraine, I see freedom there, but I also see an oligarchy there, which prevents people from managing their own destiny.
Mikhail Sokolov: Let's see what they get in the elections. At least we don't know who will win this election.
Andrey Zubov: I would say that they have freedom, of course, but there is no wide opportunity for the people to control their destiny. Let's see how it goes in the future.
Mikhail Sokolov: You raised an interesting question about the property. When you look at what is happening in Russia with property, it really feels like in some sense Vladimir Putin returns us "to Lenin's norms", to some modernized NEP, when a huge amount of property is in the hands of the state, managed by appointed friends, Putin's comrades in various services, including the KGB, and St. Petersburg City Hall, small business in the pen, napman again, and people are chained to the budget. There is such a parallel, isn't there?
Andrey Zubov: Absolutely, of course. But we must remember that, firstly, the NEP is a very short period, it was introduced when there was indeed a complete bankruptcy of military communism, while, as we remember, after the Kronstadt uprising, the NEP is quickly introduced, the gold currency, the ruble becomes gold. That is, peasants really, giving a food tax, can sell the rest on the free market. But it really continued until 2018, but in fact, complete collectivization began in the second half of 1929.
Stalin then confessed to Churchill, this is what Churchill has in his memoirs, in his memories of World War II, that it was much scarier than World War II, that it was much harder to win in the collectivization of his own people, peasants, than to defeat the Germans in World War II, but he did it. As you know, he killed some, exiled some to starvation and even cannibalism, others twisted into a ram's horn, turned into complete poverty. We know that after that the country, which had an excess of bread and livestock before, became an agricultural poorer and was so poor until the end of Soviet power, we constantly imported bread from abroad.
Mikhail Sokolov: Now he's taking it out, there's progress.
Andrey Zubov: Some elements of the market were immediately allowed to rise. I'm afraid that now everything is turning into "Nepov" agricultural holdings again, we will soon face the problem of hunger again.
Mikhail Sokolov: Sanctions and greed of monopolies, which oppress all small and medium-sized businesses, are one of the signs of Putin's regime. From different sides - the power is pressing and the foreign policy, its consequences, are pressing on the other side.
Andrey Zubov: Therefore, we consistently stand in our party for the restoration of property rights, for what scientists call the diffusion of particular property, that is, its distribution among the broad masses of people. If possible, it should be restitution, some form of compensation. We must make Russia a society of owners, not a society of wage workers and swollen Nepman oligarchs.
Mikhail Sokolov: Today Alexei Nesterenko, who seems to be the son of the enemy of the people, made a video message to President Putin.
What do you think about such appeals?
Andrey Zubov: Of course, absolutely the right thing in fact. Naturally, it is necessary to extend the communist regime to the whole, because Lenin is not a gram better than Stalin. Stalin's followers were more softer politically, but sometimes, as in Novocherkassk, they staged terrible bloody slaughters.
So, it seems to me, the whole communist period should be very clearly recognized as a period of protracted tragedy, which cannot be praised. Secondly, a criminal law is certainly needed. But who he turns to - Putin, to the KGB colonel. It's like Borman would be approached to ban the chanting of Hitler, Goebbels and so on. It's ridiculous. That is, it is necessary to change the political structure of power, it is necessary to carry out lustration so that employees of the Soviet special services are not in the civil service, although now there is a lot to say about the modern FSB, especially on the anniversary of the attempted murder of the Skripals, not only them, of course.
Mikhail Sokolov: Recently, Boris Nemtsov was commemorated.
Andrey Zubov: 4 years since the murder. And in general, the seizure of Crimea is a crime. Of course, lustration, that is, complete non-admission to state activities and service of people who worked in the KGB of the USSR in officer, in essential positions. Of course, there will be lustration, there will be no Putin in power, there will be no Sechin, there will be no Sergei Ivanov, I think we will list a lot of them with you.
Mikhail Sokolov: The regime still has an ideologue, comrade Patrushev, who all the time tells various interesting stories about how Russia is surrounded by enemies.
Andrey Zubov: Comrade Bortnikov, who is his faithful deputy.
Mikhail Sokolov: In general, there is a labor collective of Chekists, a unique thing in history, took power in the country. Special services rule the country. I don't even know where it was that some special service multiplied and how the clan took the highest official positions in the country. Maybe somewhere in the East.
Andrey Zubov: I won't tell you right away. In fact, the vile communist regime never allowed the Chekists to rule the country, as soon as the Chekists gained strength, Stalin destroyed them, put Yezhov in place of Yagoda, Beria in Yezhov's place, then, as you know, Beria was shot in 1953, Abakumov in 1956. The KGB completely subordinated the control of the party leadership.
I myself am somehow a lucky gift of the system, I could not be summoned to the KGB without my father's permission, and my father never gave such permission, thank God.
Therefore, it was under the control of the authorities. The KGB played the role of, if you like, the regime's guard dogs, and now the owner has disappeared, and the guard dogs began to rule the country. It is clear that they do not even know how to govern in a Bolshevik way, so everything falls apart before our eyes. They only know how to build a vertical, only hold and not let go, so they want to close the Internet now, so new and new repressions against public organizations, against non-profit organizations, "foreign agents" and just the most complete uglines at every step, and sometimes murders, what a long way to go. They don't know how to govern, so they only steal and try to keep everyone in their fists, and the country is falling apart before our eyes.
Mikhail Sokolov: And suddenly they start talking again that it is necessary to rebury Lenin, Stalin. Dorenko said that Stalin, Svanidze began to object to him that let Stalin lie where he lies, and go to him. What do you say, is it relevant or wait?
Andrey Zubov: This is more than relevant. But, naturally, as we said, Putin clearly sympathizes with the Stalinist regime.
Mikhail Sokolov: And how does Putin go to open a monument to the victims of repression, though it is not clear whose repressions?
Andrey Zubov: It is not clear whose repressions in a very narrow time period, and not for the whole period. I even, in my opinion, went to the Butovsky training ground once, said something there. I was horrified. I don't know what they were taught. Didn't they tell them how their fathers acted in Kommunarka and Butovo, in thousands of other places in Russia, and throughout the former USSR?
Under Putin, I am sure, it is not that Stalin will not be reburied, but not a single bust of Stalin will be demolished, not a single memorial plaque of Lenin will be removed, not a single city, be it Ulyanovsk or Kirov, will not be returned to its old historical name, not a single street will be returned. But as soon as all this is gone, it will be necessary to do everything, and return the toponymic names, and remove all this Bolshevik paraphernalia, including the image of the coat of arms of the Soviet Union on the high-rise building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Don't let me be told that this is a historical and architectural element. They would try to depict a swastika as an architectural element somewhere in Germany at the Reichstag.
Of course, we need to remove all these people. Do not forget that Lenin, Stalin, Dzerzhinsky, Kirov are state criminals guilty of death, they signed execution sentences, hundreds of thousands of people. Accordingly, they should be treated as state criminals of the highest negative rank, not just reburied with or without honors. But I think that much harsher repression should be applied to their remains, such as applied to the remains of Hitler or Goebbels, so that it would never be necessary to worship these terrible, terrible monsters of Russian and world history.
Because, I think, in addition to Russia, how many countries, Poland, Hungary, and Western countries, are all connected by blood with this criminal regime.
Mikhail Sokolov: Let's ask, and the people what, maybe we're going against the current.
Mikhail Sokolov: We also asked on Twitter, it turned out like this: if a politician like Stalin had come to power in Russia - 4% believe that the West would have won the war, 13% believe that it would have raised the standard of living, 23% that he would curb corruption and 60% are sure that he would have killed millions of innocent people. You see, the ratio is 60 to 40, let's assume that the audience of our site is advanced. I would pay attention to this issue "bridled corruption" and people's words about order, about the fight against bureaucracy and so on, this formula is like a swear word "Stalin is not on you". For some reason, part of the Russian population is sure that they would not become victims, but bureaucrats would become victims.
Andrey Zubov: First of all, people do not understand that corruption was terrible under Stalin, the growth of the bureaucratic apparatus was colossal, fast. Bureaucratic apparatus received incredible benefits, nomenclature. I know it very well, I came from such a family myself.
Mikhail Sokolov: And now there is a nomenclature, by the way, with cottages, special apartments.
Andrey Zubov: I also know perfectly well, because some of my friends, from my students, have already entered it, of course, I see it all with my own eyes. But then it was a nomenclature on blood.
I am surprised in these answers that we are now hearing only one thing that people did not say that the main crime of Stalin and Lenin is that they deprived people of the right to govern their own country in order to deprive people of this right, killed all active people, all those who really wanted the good of the people. The main benefit of the people is freedom, the opportunity to manage their own city, their village, their country. This is the main crime of the Bolsheviks, everything else is a consequence of this crime, so that people do not dare to demand power, they are killed, their property was taken away, they were starved to death, fathers and children were separated. And people now say: there is no "Master", there is no firm hand. Be a firm hand yourself, govern your country with a firm hand, do not let dictators rule your country.
Look at how Trump is a hooligan in those United States, but there is a Congress, there is a Supreme Court, there is a prosecutor, a ruler, maybe many people don't like, find themselves in political isolation.
That's the kind of state, with such a separation of power we need to build, and not wait for a new great tyrant to come. If a new great tyrant comes, the "Master", as we say, he will again bend everyone into a ram's horn, because the only task of a tyrant is to enjoy power. And any attempt to cut, reduce, reduce his power will be punished in the most cruel way, up to murder.
Mikhail Sokolov: In this sense, Vladimir Putin continues Stalin's case in terms of cutting freedoms, at least. What do you think, our friend Leonid Gozman says that March 5 is a holiday for him, if Stalin lived another month or a day, people would still be killed. Is it a holiday for you? You are a Christian thinker as well.
Andrey Zubov: Yes, of course. In this sense, I think absolutely similarly with Leonid Gozman, because the greatest value is human life. There is nothing more valuable than life.
We can easily imagine what would have happened in a month or two if Stalin hadn't died. Firstly, the case of Jewish doctors was unfolding, it would have turned, as planned, into the deportation of Jews to the Far East with repressions, the destruction of all prominent representatives of Jewish culture, except for those who absolutely sold themselves to the Stalinist regime.
Then, of course, Stalin would have led everything to the promotion of the Third World War, it could have happened through the Korean War at any time. Let me remind you that already at Stalin's funeral on March 9, Malenkov and Beria, on the one hand, Kim Il Sung, on the other, agreed to stop this war immediately. So thank God that Stalin died, didn't he die, helped to die, thank God that he passed away on March 5.