Maybe Stalin wasn’t so bad?

This hardly qualifies as good news:

There’s no question that Stalin is undergoing a sort of renaissance in Russia. Despite the many millions killed or sent to labor camps during his reign, many now view his rule with a sort of hazy nostalgia.

True, they say euphemistically, he made difficult decisions, but on the other hand, it was a time that called for tough measures. And at least in those days, they often add, Russia was powerful.

Others go further. “The personality of Stalin is covered with lies and slander. There is tremendous injustice done to this person,” said Leonid Zhura, a former government bureaucrat who spearheaded the lawsuit against Yablokov.

On one hand, you can’t blame a country that’s been in decline for a generation or so to get nostalgic about the days when it ruled half the earth. On the other hand, anybody who knows even a little bit about Stalin-era imprisonments, killings and general paranoia-driven ruthlessness knows he was, outside of Hitler, the 20th century’s greatest monster.