At Moscow’s Taganskaya metro station, a newly restored bust of Joseph Stalin now stands again. It was unveiled in May amid a sweeping reassessment of the Soviet dictator’s legacy. Once regarded primarily as a tyrant responsible for millions of deaths, Stalin is now increasingly portrayed as the victorious leader of World War II and an efficient state builder. According to Bloomberg, Stalin’s return is not merely symbolic, but part of a broader ideological framework emerging in Putin’s Russia.
Repression 2.0
As the war in Ukraine drags on, President Vladimir Putin is tightening domestic repression, increasingly drawing on Soviet-era methods. Prison sentences, censorship, and official narratives of national unity behind the war are all tools in what Denis Volkov, director of the independent Levada Center, calls “Putin’s stability 2.0.” According to him, the current public mood is reminiscent of 2007, when rising oil prices brought prosperity and optimism to post-Soviet Russia.
Levada’s June survey shows that 70% of Russians believe the country is moving in the right direction, and Putin’s approval rating stands at 86%.
The Return of Fear — and a Cult
According to Bloomberg, fear is once again reaching into the Russian elite. On July 7, Transport Minister Roman Starovoit committed suicide just hours after being dismissed by Putin. Two sources close to the government, speaking anonymously, said Starovoit feared accusations of embezzlement amid a broader purge of officials. He had only been in office for a year after serving as governor of the Kursk region. Russian media reported he may have been implicated in a corruption case linked to defense spending — following a surprise Ukrainian raid on Kursk in August 2024.
“Starovoit is a victim of purges and intra-elite repression, which is gradually increasing,” said Alexander Baunov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Berlin Center.
Against this backdrop, Stalin is once again being embraced by the state. In April, Putin signed a decree renaming Volgograd’s airport as “Stalingrad” — honoring veterans of the famous WWII battle, including those now fighting in Ukraine. “Their word is law for me,” Putin declared.
In Vologda, regional governor Georgy Filimonov unveiled a Stalin monument in December, telling a cheering crowd: “Yes, there were tragedies, but there were also achievements, a great victory, and great accomplishments.”
In Levada’s April poll, 42% of Russians named Stalin the “most outstanding” historical figure — up from just 12% in 1989. Putin ranked second with 31%, double his score from 2021, before the invasion of Ukraine.
“Stalin is now associated with order, not evil,” explained Alexandra Arkhipova, an anthropologist affiliated with the École normale supérieure in Paris. “He’s seen as a manager who built the country.”
A Campaign to Silence Dissent
The Kremlin is aggressively using legislative tools to crush dissent — from labeling individuals and organizations as “foreign agents” to charging them with “extremism” or “discrediting the army.” Over 1,000 people and entities are now listed as “foreign agents,” while organizations such as Amnesty International, Yale University, the British Council, and the Elton John AIDS Foundation have been banned as “undesirable.”
The cultural sphere is also under strict control. In 2024, director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk were sentenced to six years in prison for a play about Russian women lured by ISIS. The same play had won two Golden Mask awards — Russia’s top theater prize — just two years prior.
According to OVD-Info, nearly 3,000 people were politically persecuted in 2024 alone, and over 1,400 were imprisoned — a 25% increase compared to 2023.
Books by anti-war authors — especially those who fled the country — were first wrapped in plain paper and hidden on shelves, then removed altogether once their authors were declared extremists. Publishing houses have withdrawn and even destroyed books considered “unauthorized,” including those mentioning LGBTQ themes. Criminal charges were filed against staff at a major publishing house for “recruiting for extremist activity,” a term that now covers everything from protest literature to children’s books.
“The modern Russian authorities have gone further than the Soviet ones,” says Moscow-based political scientist Andrei Kolesnikov. “In the USSR, censorship was preventive. Now, people are jailed after the fact. It creates a new kind of self-censorship.”
On July 1, former Culture Minister Mikhail Shvydkoi called openly for the return of Soviet-style censorship by “thousands of enlightened state servants,” writing in Rossiyskaya Gazeta: “It would be much more honest to return to censorship.”
Punishing Thought and Spreading Fear
A new law now targets not only creators of content but also its consumers: the Duma recently voted to fine those who search for “extremist” materials online. Although Russia has already blocked access to most major social media platforms, some lawmakers raised concerns about enforcement. “We are proposing to punish people for thought crimes,” said Communist MP Alexei Kurinny. “It seems we are implementing the most absurd dystopian scenarios.”
The Stalin-era practice of denunciation has returned. In November, 68-year-old pediatrician Nadezhda Buyanova was sentenced to five and a half years after a war widow accused her of criticizing the invasion. A saxophonist from Samara was jailed for six years over Facebook posts. A Russian who helped Ukrainian refugees was sentenced to 22 years for treason and aiding terrorism.
According to legal watchdog First Department, Russian courts have opened 694 criminal cases for treason or espionage involving 756 people since the war began.
And yet, as Levada’s Volkov notes, most Russians don’t feel directly affected. “The restrictions are visible mostly to a small urban elite,” he said. “The modern pattern of repression is random.”
Anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova echoes that sentiment: “Russia today is an information autocracy, not the totalitarian state of Stalin’s time. People aren’t targeted for belonging to a group — repression is not systemic in that way.”
This article was prepared based on materials published by Bloomberg. The author does not claim authorship of the original text but presents their interpretation of the content for informational purposes.
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