Interview: Professor Kathleen Smith

Dr. Kathleen Smith, Professor at the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, recently came back from her trip to Moscow. While there, she attended a state-sponsored contest for a memorial dedicated to victims of political repression. Can you talk about which entry won the contest and why it was so well-received by the jury?

Let me take one step back and explain who the jury was. Instead of having lots of famous architects or artists, the jury was made up of political figures, or people from NGOs. So, entries that are artistically more abstract or experimental were not likely to win. When they made the final decision, the jury also met with the city government of Moscow to consider some practical issues, such as budget or maintenance.

The monument they picked, “Wall of Grief,” has carvings of human figures that represent victims in Stalin’s gulags. I think when the jury all agreed about the emotion behind it. ‘Grief’ is a strong word of sympathy that everybody would feel about the victims of Stalin. At the same time, it’s not an angry emotion that makes you question how such repression could have happened or who should be blamed for it - it just laments about the past.

But this year, the Communist Party of Russia also erected two statues of Stalin. What’s the general social discourse on Stalin in Russia?

I think people are very divided—although I’m not sure how visible the divide is, because the Russian media is not diverse enough to reflect different views existing in a society.

In part, Stalin is a really complicated figure. During his rule, Russia industrialized, built up the education system and won World War II. If you grew up in the Soviet Union, all you heard from the press were the good things about Stalin.

Even today, a lot of people—based on the limited information available to them—still see Stalin as a war hero who leveraged the country out from poverty.

What is Putin’s take on Stalin?

In my view, he is closer to the people who think Stalin should overall be respected for his achievements. That being said, one theory is that he is tired of being reproached as Stalinist; indeed, his approach to history is more nuanced than that. His view is that we should not ignore Stalin’s failings, but we shouldn’t single him out as the only evil dictator. Therefore, giving in a little bit to the people who focus more on the dark side of Stalin’s era could be a way to keep them content.

When Putin and Medvedev use the term “victims of political repression,” how inclusive is their definition?

Since 1991, the Russian government has recognized October 30 as a holiday for political dissidents and prisoners. It used to be a day only for political dissidents, who were very different people from the typical victims of Stalin: Stalin’s victims included much more random groups of people. With that, I refer to arbitrary distinctions such as those accused by their neighbors as having said something bad about the government, or members of a “suspicious” ethnic minority.

Some groups in civil society still want to observe the original definition of the holiday, but that meaning would not be comfortable for the regime, because it currently arrests its own political dissidents.