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Summary:  Polls show that most young Russians hold ambivalent or even positive views of their country's worst dictator. Such attitudes stem not from defects in the Russian character, but from a massive failure in education. The West can help, and must do so fast.

  SARAH E. MENDELSON is a Senior Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a co-editor of The Power and Limits of NGOs: A Critical Look at Building Democracy in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. THEODORE P. GERBER is Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

			Topics: Russia CIS and Central Asia Media/Public Opinion Social and Cultural Issues

Imagine that a scientific survey revealed that most Germans under 30 today viewed Hitler with ambivalence and that a majority thought he had done more good than bad. Imagine that about 20 percent said they would vote for him if he ran for president tomorrow. Now try to envision the horrified international response that would follow.

Of course, most contemporary Germans revile Hitler. But ask young Russians about Stalin, and you get answers very similar to those above. Since 2003, we have conducted three surveys in Russia, and according to these polls, there is no stigma associated with Stalin in the country today. In fact, many Russians hold ambivalent or even positive views of him. For example, one-quarter or more of Russian adults say they would definitely or probably vote for Stalin were he alive and running for president, and less than 40 percent say they definitely would not. A majority of young Russians, moreover, do not view Stalin -- a man responsible for millions of deaths and enormous suffering -- with the revulsion he deserves. Although Stalinism per se is not rampant in Russia today, misperceptions about the Stalin era are. Few of the respondents to our surveys could be classified as hard-core Stalinists, but fewer still are hard-core anti-Stalinists. Most Russians, in other words, flunk the Stalin test.

And yet, whereas similar findings about Hitler in Germany would no doubt provoke international alarm, American and European political leaders have failed to respond to this trend in Russia -- and it is doubtful that they will anytime soon. Western policymakers prefer to ignore unpleasant news about the weakness of democracy in Russia, and this preference is unlikely to change before the next meeting of the G-8, the group of the world's leading industrialized nations, which is to be held in St. Petersburg in July. With U.S. troops bogged down in Iraq, American leaders are especially overwhelmed at the moment and have little attention to spare. They will be greatly tempted simply to declare Russia's democratic development finished and to avoid the difficult work of figuring out how to respond effectively to the dangerous legacies of Soviet rule that still trouble their new, uneasy ally.

Statements by U.S. policymakers and some academics on Russia tend to reflect a benign view of the country, lauding its economic growth since 1999, citing its several rounds of elections, and lowering the baseline of comparison so that Russia appears to be a "normal" country. Western cheerleaders of Russian President Vladimir Putin are likely to dismiss positive Russian attitudes toward Stalin as a minor growing pain or a speed bump on the country's road to democracy -- just as they downplay the carnage in Chechnya; the festering, potentially explosive conflict throughout the North Caucasus; the Kremlin's blatant suppression of independent television outlets and nongovernmental organizations that dare to challenge its official line; the sorry state of Russia's disintegrating military; the predatory and ineffective police; and the massive corruption at all levels of Russian government.

Such willful ...

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