[goldstategop]

Its older people who have fond memories of Stalin as a strong leader. That explains the continuing attachment to the Soviet dictator than any sense of attachment to Communism. For many Russians adrift in a sea of capitalism and missing a sense of direction in a democracy, Stalin has become a sort of father figure. Its that's side of Stalin Russians admire and not his cruel nature or the bloodthirsty crimes associated with his three decades long rule of the Soviet Union from the late 1920s to the early 1950s.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[Monterrosa-24]

Solzhenitsyn himself put it into perspective when he wrote of getting the news in 1953 that Stalin was learning that there is indeed a God....

"The loudspeakers announced it. The Asiatic dictator is dead. But where I stood young girls cried, "What will become of us now"."

Then as now Pravda was a Stalin organ so many people are not fully informed of his crimes. Nowadays too there are lots of just plain ignorant young people of the type that Jay Leno interviews in Hollywood. They can tell you all about pop stars but nothing about history.