Stalin’s Poetry, Mussolini’s Violin

File this piece of news under WTF: The Russian government’s English-language overseas news network, Russia Today, wants you to make them your preferred source for cable and satellite news. So they recruited a new mascot for their advertisements: Josef Stalin. In a series of ads promoting the network, Russia Today asks if you knew the brutal, genocidal dictator also wrote romantic poetry. Between the extermination of the kulaks, the genocide of the Ukranians, the exile of an entire generation of intellectuals to labor camps, the brutal invasion of the Baltics, the planned genocide of Russia’s Jews, his iron-fisted rule of Eastern Europe and the massive deportations to Central Asia… Russia Today would like to let you know that Stalin was really a pretty nice guy. Coming up next: Cambodian state television’s “Pol Pot was kind to his students as a college professor. Did you know this?” and Italy’s “Mussolini played the violin to relax. Did you know this?” campaigns. Sometimes I think that the Kremlin’s new propagandists at Russia Today are just having way too much fun.