Stalin Returns

I A Krasnaya

One of the event's leading historian Nikolai Sapelkin shared his impressions of the Stalin Readings scientific and educational conference in Moscow on December 29, 2019.

According to Sapelkin, about 900 people attended the conference, and this despite the fact that the ticket cost from 2800 rubles.

Answering a question about the relevance of studies of Stalin's personality the historian gave a figurative example and said that the current situation with the study of the personality and activities of Joseph Stalin in Russian history can be briefly described as follows: "My second cousin's second cousin suffered from pneumonia and suffered very much. I demand that general practitioners stop all studios of this disease, and this brings me suffering. By studying the causes and nature of the disease, doctors themselves become its distributors, and can infect the entire society".

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"Replace the doctors with historians, the disease with the history of the Soviet past, and you will recognize thy hackneyed song of this audience", Sapelkin said.

According to the researcher, "Stalin Reading's was a kind of response to this encroachment on the freedom of scientists. "History and hysteria are not the same thing. History is a fundamental science based on real events and facts", the researcher emphasised.

Sapelkin also noted that the study of Stalin's life is interesting not only for historians, but also for futurests. 'The theme of Stalin is important for futurists in the common sense that the future is the past free from negativity".

"In order for us to understand what we can take from the Soviet and Stalinist projects to our new protect. Stalin needs to be studied and rethought.' Sapelkin said.

See also: Kurginyan: the problem of Stalin is incredibly large.

According to the host of the event, in the reports that were heard at the conference, the researchers tried to understand not only the specific positions of the history of Soviet Russia and the biography of the leader, but also to look into the future.

"According to the actions of Stalin, it is clear that he had a planning horizon of centuries or more. That is, we have never had such a leader who planned for five to seven generations in the history of the country", said the researcher.

According to Sapelkin, questions from the audience at the conference were also mainly related to the topic of the future of Russia.

"Now we are witnessing a unique phenomenon that has not yet happened in history when every person who does not even know the historical methodology can begin lo study the personality and actions of Stalin", the historian said.

Sapelkin inked today's interest in Stalin's personality with his slander in previous periods. "This is due to the fact that people believed the state propaganda of the 80-90s. They abandoned Stalin, Lenin, the Soviet inheritance, lost the country, lost confidence in the future, as a result, lost the quality of life, lost their quality of life, lost their jobs, lose their future."

Stalin was demonised for the collapse of the USSR, the people did not forgive this:

"Now the broad masses realised that they had been deceived with Stalin. Stalin was a slandered man. And they rushed to conduct independent historical research", concluded Sapelkin.

"Of course, when this interest is satisfied, there will not be such on excessive demand for research on Stalin's personality. But it's clearly now that he goes down in history with a plus sign and this is a powerful positive sign". The historian summed up.

Recall. December 21 and 22 in Moscow, the scientific and educational conference 'Stalin Readings' was held. The event was hosted jointly by Nikolai Sapelkin and Andrey Fefelov.

At the conference, reports were made by famous Russian scientists and researchers: Yu N Zhukov—"The First Defeat of I V Stalin". A I Fursova—"Why the Soviet system? Why Stalin?". V Yu Katasonova—"The Economy of Stalin", M G Delyagina—"Stalin and Globalization'", O N Chetverikova—"Stalin and the Vatican". A V Isaev—'Stalin as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief", E Yu Spitsyan—"Autumn of the Patriarch, Soviet power in 1945-1953", I S Shishkina—"The Triumph of Stalin's Diplomacy", N S Sapelkina—"Stalin's Religious Policy", D Yu Peretochin—'Stalin and Oil" and others.

The event's page says. "Due to the personality scale. Stalin is still an active factor in domestic and foreign policy. That is why an information war is being waged against him and the state he built". For the purposes of the conference, it was stated that it was held to "protect the historical truth and recreate the true picture of events".

The initiators of the readings were the Day-TV channel and the Zavtra newspaper.

Nikolai Sapelkin is a historian, publicist, publisher, member of the Union of Writers of Russia, lives in Voronezh, has been studying the personality and activities of Stalin for about 30 years.

In July 2018, the newspaper "Essence of Time" began to publish a collective monograph written by members of the movement of the same name: "The personality of Stalin. Analytics of the conflict of interpretations". The results of the study formed the basis of the play "Shephered" by Sergey Kurginyan—a mystery that tells about the formation of Stalin's personality.

There were a large number of conferences and meetings in Russia and Belarus on the occasion of 140th birth anniversary of J V Stalin in December 2019. Formal anti Stalinism is not a major problem in Russia today in the communist movement. Stalin has indubitably been restored in the communist struggle in Russia and elsewhere. It is refreshing to learn people are taking strong interest in Stalin at a time when anti-Stalinism is the fashion or order of the day. It is also important to know how anti-Stalinist elements utilise Lenin and Stalin for their own class interests.

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Vol. 52, No. 30, Jan 26 - Feb 1, 2020