Stalinism was criminal, costly and inefficient. Today’s Russia could meet the same fate. Roman Pimenov / Interpress / TASS By Leonid Gozman, for The Moscow Times Today’s Russia doesn’t have the concentration camps or mass repressions we associate with Stalin’s regime. But cruelty and bloodshed weren’t the only defining characteristics of Stalin’s system. There were others too, and their reemergence under President Vladimir Putin suggests that Stalinism is resurging. Citizen as Resource Like the pharaos who commissioned the Egyptian pyramids, Communist leaders, viewed people only as a resource, an expendable commodity. They did not concern themselves with their citizens’ quality of life. Living conditions are much more pleasant in Russia today than they were in the Soviet era. But this isn’t an achievement of the state. It is a consequence of the fact that despite the vulnerable and conditional status of private property the Russian economy primarily functions as a market economy.
Kilde: Leonid Gozman: Is there a rebirth of stalinism in Russia?