Billionaire calls for return of Stalin statue

[Popular Front of Judea]

A famous statue of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin that was torn down overnight three years ago in his hometown of Gori will be reinstated in time for his birthday, December 21, local and Western media reported Tuesday, citing Georgian officials.

The statue, which had been a prominent fixture in the town's central square, was dismantled under the regime of pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili. The landmark will reportedly now be re-erected outside the local Stalin Museum, opened in 1937 at the height of the Great Terror.

Georgia's new, Russia-friendly prime minister, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, ordered the reinstatement of Stalin monuments throughout the country after his Georgian Dream political coalition swept parliamentary elections last year.


Georgia to Re-Erect Stalin Statue | Moscow Times (http://www.themoscowtimes.com/print/article/georgia-to-re-erect-stalin-statue/483885.html)

[Delenda Carthago]

The thread's title is crap.

[Brutus]

Why, though? Nationalistic pride?

[Darius]

The thread's title is crap.


Why? It hurt your Stalinist feelings?

[Popular Front of Judea]

Care to tell us why you think the title is 'crap'?


The thread's title is crap.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

Why, though? Nationalistic pride?
To distract from all the real issues that the working class are suffering from.

[Geiseric]

The thread's title is crap.
You mad that russian billionaires look up to Stalin?

[Sir Comradical]

This is great news!

[Paul Pott]

This wasn't just any billionaire, but the prime minister. That's why the title is misleading and rightfully described as 'crap'.

Stalin is still a fatherlike figure in the collective memory of the Soviet working class, who was in power when Georgia was part of something greater, the social problems and systemic corruption that plague the country now did not exist, and Georgians took pride in a leader in Moscow and felt they had a central place in the USSR's present and future.

It's not a mystery why politicians from the former USSR appropriate aspects of Stalin's legacy, just as Hellen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr. and others have been whitewashed in the west into figures that are harmless or even beneficial to the status quo, with holidays and stuff in their honor.

[Paul Pott]

To distract from all the real issues that the working class are suffering from.

Just as likely to make them think about what Stalin would do to the people in power...

[Rafiq]

To suggest Stalin's (or even Lenin's) modern basis within the context of Georgian politics is some sort of proletarian hero is delusional. This is, essentially, a pro-Russian gesture.

[Paul Pott]

To suggest Stalin's (or even Lenin's) modern basis within the context of Georgian politics is some sort of proletarian hero is delusional.

Because you say so. He doesn't have to be a "proletarian hero" to be a symbol of Georgia.


This is, essentially, a pro-Russian gesture.

You'd think they'd install Putin statues, or at least Putin ones inside Stalin ones.

[Delenda Carthago]

Why? It hurt your Stalinist feelings?
Because its the same as telling "A poor proletariat of minimum wage from a nearly bankrupt country hates Darius", because I hate you. And I m not doing it from a prime minister's position.


Other good titles would be:

"Working class immigrant's son prepare's attack on Iranian regime" for Obama and "Wealthy capitalist defends Marx's work" for Engels.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Because you say so. He doesn't have to be a "proletarian hero" to be a symbol of Georgia. .

What kind of retort is that to what Rafiq said?


You'd think they'd install Putin statues, or at least Putin ones inside Stalin ones.

This is about historical nationalism, where Stalin has become a symbol for Russian might and influence, where even the modern russian Nazis in their worship of a powerful past pay tribute thereto. Rafiq's point, as far as I gather, is that the reinstatement of the statue has nothing at all to do with what Stalin did or did not do, but has everything to do with modern geopolitical strategies cynically exploiting historical epochs. Thus, you cannot have a Putin statue - not yet, anyway.

[Popular Front of Judea]

If the title is factually inaccurate I will gladly change it.

[Teacher]

I don't mind a Stalin statue. Prefer statues of red workers, peasants and soldiers.

[G4b3n]

I wonder if its a coincidence that only Stalinists are calling the thread title "crap" when it is factually accurate.
Anyway, it is what Uncle Joe would have wanted, a statue of his one true love.

[Paul Pott]

What kind of retort is that to what Rafiq said?

Rafiq is acting like I claimed that someone in the former USSR sees a picture or statue of Stalin and gets a pang of class consciousness from his revolutionary legend because he's a "proletarian hero".




This is about historical nationalism, where Stalin has become a symbol for Russian might and influence, where even the modern russian Nazis in their worship of a powerful past pay tribute thereto. Rafiq's point, as far as I gather, is that the reinstatement of the statue has nothing at all to do with what Stalin did or did not do, but has everything to do with modern geopolitical strategies cynically exploiting historical epochs. Thus, you cannot have a Putin statue - not yet, anyway.

The Putin statue thing wasn't serious, and I agree this is also a gesture to Russia.

How does this contradict my point that to Georgians he represents one of the only periods in time when their relationship with Moscow was positive?

[Comrade Jacob]

I thought it was already put back up.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

How does this contradict my point that to Georgians he represents one of the only periods in time when their relationship with Moscow was positive?

It doesn't, but Georgian nationalist feelings are also utterly and totally irrelevant.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I thought most Georgian nationalists hated Russia?