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Totalitarianism as a Spiritual State

22 December, 00:00

By Lesia HANZHA, Tina TSKHOVREBASHVILI, and Vyacheslav YAKUBENKO, The Day Two events took place in different parts of the former USSR last Friday, outwardly unconnected. An exposition on totalitarian art opened at the Art Museum in Kyiv, featuring masterpieces of socialist realism. The last arrangements had been made for the unveiling of a monument to Stalin in Zestafani, a town in the west of Georgia in the Caucasus. On that date, according to the latest historical studies, the "father of all peoples" would have been 120 years old. One thing connects these events. Instituted under Stalin, socialist realism had carried out its mission in full: decades of nationwide stupefaction and ideological canonization of numerous party leaders, extending the "only correct teaching" to all corners of the globe.

Kyiv's exhibit is unique as almost all items on display have been stored in the National Museum's repository for over a decade. The reason for their creation and then oblivion was ideology. How could a new personality cult be established without destroying the old one, with all its attributes, substituting the portraits of the old political monster with those of the new ones? (One is reminded of the fuss round the "jubilee gift" for President Kuchma two years ago, with "independent" Ukrainian painters competing to create a masterpiece, submitting a number of variations on the Hrushevsky-Kravchuk-Kuchma theme).

So they tore down Lenin's statues and removed his portraits from office walls, so what? Shelving works of totalitarian art is much easier than changing the totalitarian mentality. Totalitarianism is not a social order but a state of mind.

Another Stalin statue was unveiled in another western Georgian town, Samtredia. "It is not just nostalgia. It is a demonstration of distrust of all those currently in power who robbed their own people of heating, electricity, and jobs," The Day's correspondent was told by Joseph Stalin's 62-year-old grandson Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, head of the Georgian Society of Stalin's Ideological Inheritors.

Such nostalgic campaigns, betraying a steady guiding hand, are staged not only in Georgia. Mr. Dzhugashvili is traveling to Minsk shortly. He will play his grandfather in a two-part picture titled The Moment of Truth to be released by a Belarusian company. The film is about World War II. Also, he will meet with Aleksandr Lukashenka to agree on the opening of a Stalinist society in that country. Weak power in a democracy inevitably fosters growth in the number of those craving an "iron hand" and "iron will." Only when we have an effective government based on popular recognition and strict observance of all human rights and freedoms will people stop looking back at totalitarianism with longing and totalitarian art will be regarded as just another form of art, not politics.

COMMENTARY

Heorhy KRIUCHKOV, Chairman, Parliamentary Committee for National Security and Defense, Communist Party of Ukraine:

A miserable starving country. Twenty years later it actually turned into a superpower as tremendous changes had been carried out. There was also a negative, tragic aspect to that development. It is easy for us to discuss it now, but at that period the situation was entirely different. There have been no other personalities as spectacular as Stalin.

Oleksandr LAVRYNOVYCH, Rukh:

Such pages in history should not be forgotten. We must always remember that proclaiming universal well-being and happiness spells not just trouble but a nationwide tragedy. Names such as Joseph Stalin should be entered into a separate column as a reminder of where tyranny leads.

Newspaper output №:

№46, (1998)

Section

Day After Day