Stalin Calling

In relation to the previous post, I am catching all this news of a new mobile phone being released in Moscow by Nokia which features an image of Stalin – perhaps in the style of one of those U2-branded iPods.  After some hard searching, I came across one exclusive image from The Cell Freak.

If this is true, and not just another hoax, it would really be a breathtaking moment for cultural politics – the appropriation of communist icons for opportunistic commercial gain.  Almost as good as the $2,000 Red Army coats or the Kalashnikov bedside lamp.

Musings aside, it is pretty disgusting that a dictator whose death toll we conservatively estimate at 20 million people (other estimates point to 50 million) should become a fashionable pocket accessory.  Oddly, Nokia is a Finnish company, and it is not hard in Finland to locate someone whose relatives perished in Stalin’s two wars against the tiny country during World War II.