A few years ago, Stalin had admirers marching in Moscow parades, and even has an internet fan club...
Years ago, I was in Vypolzovo on a START on-site inspection. Our bus driver was a crazy commie from the Soviet Union days, and he made sure we knew about it…adorning the inside of the bus with Soviet memorabilia, flag, signs and a bust of Lenin on the dashboard. Every time we got on the bus, we belted a chorus of “America, the Beautiful”. His face was as red as the flags in the bus. He was pissed…
Yeah, but they were the oddballs. Every Georgian I’ve spoken to hates and despises his memory, and I have yet to hear anything good about him from any Russian of my acquaintance.
He was a mass murderer, who purged the military in 1937, starved millions to death, terrorized his population into submission, and used gulag slave labor to build rail lines, coal mines, oil wells and other infrastructure that Putin has today to finance his wars.
He once told Churchill, “One man’s death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.” But now the gas-lighting du jour in Russia is that is he was a great man, a hero, etc.