The textbook also led to a diplomatic faux pas by noting in passing that “Western intelligence services” fueled the flames of Hungary’s 1956 uprising. The passage, which diminishes the agency of Hungarian citizens who fought for independence against a Soviet-imposed regime, was recently criticized by Tamas Mentzer, the secretary of state for bilateral relations between Russia and Hungary at the Hungarian foreign ministry, normally not one to fall out of line with Moscow.

This gradual reorientation toward Stalin’s outlook, which consigns Siberia to a place of rehabilitation for the nation’s traitors rather than a true part of the state, has excited Russian propagandists, who often do not know where to stop in their opposition to the West. The recent scandal around the comments made by Margarita Simonyan, Editor-in-Chief of Russian state-controlled broadcaster RT, is a case in point. She recently called for the detonation of a nuclear weapon over Siberia as the best way of deterring the West and demonstrating that Russia has no remorse over using such weapons. Most of her fellow propagandists went berserk, recommending Armenia as an alternative target since her family comes from there. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was forced to clarify that nothing has changed in Russia’s official nuclear policy.

The newfound rise in Stalin’s popularity has entailed efforts to erase the gruesome parts of Soviet history. In the Russian town of Vorkuta, a monument dedicated to the Polish victims of a major Gulag labor camp disappeared, with local officials hiding behind excuses that unfavorable weather conditions were to blame. Plaques commemorating Gulag victims previously displayed across Moscow have been removed. This came after Memorial International, an organization founded by Soviet dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov to remember those who suffered under the Gulag system, was liquidated at the end of 2021.

Russian “Z-stars”—poets, singers, and artists who openly support the ongoing war—have tried to absorb dissident Soviet figures into a continuous Russian history in this same spirit of historical revisionism. In honor of the “beacons of Russia,” who “defeat the enemy,” the Z-stars sing: “Korolev and Tsiolkovsky, Pavlov and Pirogov / With us there’s Diaghilev and Brodsky, Levitan and Serov / Pasternak and Vysotsky, Shukhov and Vasnetsov.” Among this motley list, we find the director of the Soviet space program, Korolev, who was arrested for six years and suffered life-changing injuries following cruel treatment in prison. Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago put into question communism and Stalin’s Great Purge since he had seen many of his close friends get dragged away by the police. Brodsky finished his life in the United States after it became impossible for him to publish his criticisms in the Soviet Union.

Such details, of course, are unimportant to Z-stars backing Russia’s campaigns to purify Stalin’s repression. It aligns with new curricula in Russian schools teaching students that the West bred Hitler to attack the Soviet Union, neglecting the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and portraying Stalin as the liberator of Eastern Europe. Ukraine, according to Putin, still houses the Nazis from the “Great Patriotic War,” so it is only logical that he would try to repair Stalin’s reputation as his predecessor in the fight against Nazism. To assure Russians that this is nothing new, propagandists have connected Hitler to Napoleon, insisting that both are examples of insidious Western coalitions attempting to take down the stalwart Russian people.

Russia is struggling to define its history and, consequently, its war aims, since the answers it arrives at for the former will influence the way it frames the latter. This has led to public divisions between propagandists and the government, contradictory statements from the Kremlin, and clumsy references to past historical figures to justify contemporary policy. This has left Russian citizens confused.

Chances are, however, that ordinary Russians are spending less time wrestling with the narratives of the war than struggling through a new way of life. Local media outlets have expressed panic about the disappearance of antibiotics and specialized drugs made in the West which treat conditions ranging from cardiovascular diseases to depression. As Russia reportedly plans to increase its defense budget to 6% of its GDP, up from 3.9% in 2023, citizens have become increasingly worried.

In advance of the 2024 elections, Russian Field ran another poll in which half of the 30-40-year-old Russian respondents prioritized a decrease in prices, an increase in their salaries, and improvements to their living conditions, including medical and educational institutions. Only 7% of respondents chose Russia’s victory against Ukraine as their top priority, while about a third wished for an end to the war. The head of the Russian Public Opinion Research Center predictably refused to hear it, saying that indexes of satisfaction in Russia have not fallen since the start of 2022.

This disconnect between government officials and citizens is not unique to Russia but is particularly problematic for a warring state. That being said, Putin has maintained normalcy in Russia by insulating big cities from the draft, keeping GDP forecasts higher than expected at the outbreak of the war, and authorizing import substitution plans that give Russians the impression that brands are changing but the quality of their products is not. These measures, however, have placed Russia under China’s wing. And if there is one suggestion that sounds especially repulsive to Russians, it is foreign dependence. Peter and Catherine the Great drew from the West to make the empire more self-sufficient and modern. Stalin depended on no one. Putin is slapping familiar Soviet names on Chinese-produced cars, which account for about half of the Russian automobile market.

It would be out of character for Russians to accept being the junior partner to a country that has failed to provide military support. But then again, not much noise was made when China included Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, currently Russian territory, on its new world map.

Axel de Vernou is a junior at Yale University majoring in History and Global Affairs with a Certificate of Advanced Language Study in Russian. He is a Research Assistant at the Yorktown Institute.

This article was first published by RealClearDefense.

Image: Shutterstock.com