The image of J. V. Stalin in modern party discourse: “the shadow”

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin remains one of the most talked about political figures of the XX century. There is yet no consensus on the state level about his activity: the elite tries to avoid the assessment of controversial and ambiguous periods of national history. Modern political parties develop the image of Stalin within the framework of development of their historical policy. The article analyzes the attitude of the parties towards the Soviet leader, determines the key peculiarities of constructing the image, and ways of using references to the “Stalinist time” in the political struggle of modern Russia. Research methodology employs the legal documents of the most popular parties, speeches and publications of their leaders. The author concludes on the absence of unified approach of modern parties towards the figure of J. V. Stalin. Among large political parties, the “United Russia” has no unequivocal opinion on Stalin, while the rest attribute themselves to apologists and critics. The first group (the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, All-Russian Political Party “Rodina”, “Communists of Russia”) is characterized with high mythologization of the image of the “leader of peoples”, creating the image of the ideal leader, statesman and defender of interest of the country, omitting or justifying all negative actions. The critics of J. V. Stalin differ in their approaches: such parties as LDPR, “Just Russia”, and partially “United Russia”) believe that the crimes of that time are sufficiently studied; while “PARNA” and “Yabloko” insist on large-scale de-Stalinization and decommunization, referring to the practices of Eastern European countries.