We have seen the policy become implemented in incremental steps – a new history textbook here, closed access to historical records there, mounting pressure on reconciliation and truth groups, and even a television poll for the most important Russian putting the out-sized dictator Joseph Stalin on top.  Today’s Kremlin appears to be engaged in an all-out campaign to restore the legacy of Stalin, erase the crimes and abuses of his regime, cast a new proud light on his record, and re-write the past.  Even the state propaganda news channel RussiaToday has happily borrowed the Stalin brand for ads in the Washington DC subways.  As Grigory Pasko has written on this blog, Russia is one of the only countries where the past is unpredictable.

The question isn’t so much whether or not the siloviki are carrying out a policy of “Re-Stalinization,” but rather, toward what end?  What purpose do these history games serve, and where does this sudden fear – which was not present whatsoever in the 1990s – to critically examine the past come from?

The latest episode of this confusing restoration of history’s most brutal dictator is reported on by Alex Rodriguez at the Chicago Tribune, who speaks to several people at the NGO Memorial, following the sudden raiding of their offices by security forces, who beyond the run-of-the-mill harassment these researchers and academics face regularly, were out to seize something in particular: