Stalin's legacy in modern Russian politics

Abstract

The article shows how Putin's Russia is purposefully and increasingly actively reproducing the Stalin’s legacy, shifting in a light favorable to it the perspective in assessments of the Second World War regarding the causes and circumstances that led to its outbreak. Arbitrarily interpreting historical facts, Putin does not only prescriptively determine how scientists should evaluate the events of 1939—1945, but also adapts the past, distorted by him, to justify his aggressive foreign policy course, including the war against Ukraine. This discourse about the "necessity of countering modern manifestations of Nazism" actually gives grounds for the legitimacy of comparing Putin's Ruscism to Hitler's Nazism.