What kind of nation resurrects a dictator who starved his people, imprisoned millions, and ruled through terror? In Russia, the answer isn’t just political. It’s spiritual.


Stalin isn’t returning—because in many ways, he never left.

In 2023, Volgograd unveiled a brand-new Stalin monument. In 2025, a Soviet-era relief of his face quietly reappeared in a Moscow metro station. And while these tributes grow—
monuments to his victims are vanishing.

State TV calls him “strong.” School textbooks soften his crimes. And polls show rising admiration. Today, I’ll explain this strange obsession—why it’s growing now and what it really means.

Stalin Was a Cult Leader

Stalinism wasn’t just a political project. It was a cult.

Today, many Russians have forgotten what it was really built on. It wasn’t just about building a better society. The Bolsheviks framed their movement as a global salvation mission—an almost religious calling to remake the world.

That messianic streak runs deep in Russian culture. There’s always been this idea that Russia has a special destiny, a need to reshape the world in its own image. That’s why everything we do must be the biggest, boldest, and most spectacular. (A warm nod to our spiritual cousins, the Americans.)

In the early 20th century, that ambition took form as the dream of a worldwide socialist revolution—with Moscow, of course, as its center. And they didn’t invent it from scratch. They borrowed heavily from Christianity.

You see the same black-and-white worldview: good versus evil. The same sacred texts, prophets, and saviors. The same apocalyptic vision of a final reckoning. Then they layered on a strict hierarchy, a supreme leader, rituals, insiders and outsiders—and built a closed system. A cult. One that was very hard to leave.

Stalin played the role of cult leader to perfection.

Pick up any history of religious cults—you’ll find the same elements. The only difference was scale. Because in Russia, even our suffering is massive. Even our self-destruction has grandeur.

You can criticize cult followers all you want—but cults offer something people crave: meaning. That’s what Stalinism gave millions. Its message was simple: We are building a new world. Everyone understood what that meant—and what they had to do.

Even if they lived in fear and poverty, they still believed their struggle had meaning. That it wasn’t for nothing.

Let me ask you: do you have that kind of purpose? That deeper meaning? Most of us don’t. But Stalin’s true believers did. They thought they were the lucky ones. They believed they were living for something greater—even if it meant giving up their freedom and lives.

That’s how cults work.

The Perfect Conditions for a Cult

The cult of Stalin didn’t come out of nowhere.

By the late 1920s, the Soviet Union had become a system with no private property, no independent courts, and no protection from local authorities. Your right to live—let alone thrive—depended entirely on how the state saw you. And you had no way to push back.

In that kind of world, Stalin became something more than a leader. He became the only figure people could appeal to—the godlike force who might save you…or crush you in an instant.

To really understand how that worked, imagine yourself in a Soviet city in the 1930s.

You work for the state—because there are no private businesses. You live in one room of a communal apartment. Buying or building your own place? Illegal. Food is rationed, and you spend hours each day waiting in line for the basics.

You can’t just move to the countryside either. You have no tools, no seeds, no livestock, no money. The only way to live even halfway decently is to land a job that grants access to resources—and learn how to stretch those scraps to feed your family. Maybe you’re a surgeon. A warehouse manager. A cop. A local Party official. Maybe you hand out vacation vouchers. Or work in a cafeteria and steal food. Or make custom shoes for the wives of powerful men.

But even with a tiny advantage, you must never—ever—appear disloyal. Because if you lose your job, you lose everything: your income, your housing, and often your freedom—or even your life. And your family becomes outcasts. If your children are labeled “the son” or “the daughter of an enemy of the people,” they’ll never rise above street sweeper or dishwasher.

So what do you do? You believe. You believe in Stalin the way others might believe in a savior—because psychologically, it’s safer. And you never organize outside the state. Because a cult doesn’t tolerate competition.

The regime dismantled every grassroots group. Not just political parties, but veterans’ clubs, religious circles—even local choirs. By the 1930s, Soviet society was a sea of isolated individuals. The only survival strategy was to secure a spot within the cult—within the system.

And it worked. It pulled in the smartest, most ambitious people. The thinkers, organizers, and leaders—all ended up serving the system. Because it was the only game in town.

Psychologists call this Stockholm syndrome: when a hostage becomes so helpless, the only way to survive is to identify with the captor. You merge with the aggressor. You convince yourself it was your choice all along.

And it doesn’t happen consciously. One day, someone simply “realizes” how great the leader is—and feels like they’ve seen the light. At that point, faith in Stalin becomes mystical. Because when your enemies are invisible, and danger can strike from anywhere, all you have left is luck. So you pray. You hope the threat passes you by.

That’s why Soviet life became so ritualized in the 1930s and 1940s. People were elevated through ritual. Destroyed through ritual. Justice, law, even logic—none of it mattered. It was like living in communion with spirits.

And those public loyalty oaths? Those confessions of guilt? They weren’t political. They were acts of spiritual defense. Like casting out demons.

The Cult Needs Enemies

By the late 1920s, cracks were forming in the Soviet dream. It had been ten years since the Bolsheviks promised equality, justice, and a better world. None of it had materialized. Instead, Soviet citizens were drowning in shortages, paranoia, and silent despair.

While the U.S. roared through the 1920s, and even struggling Germany looked like a beacon of prosperity, the USSR was breaking down. The industrial sector was crumbling. Machinery was falling apart. Domestic production was anemic. And Western sanctions made exports nearly impossible. On top of that, the country faced a disastrous shortage of skilled professionals. Many engineers had either fled during the civil war—or been purged by the new regime.

The result was disasters, infrastructure failures, factory breakdowns, and widespread paralysis.

But the Soviet leadership couldn’t say, “We failed.” So the cult did what all cults do when their promises fall apart: It invented enemies.

That’s when the infamous show trials began. Dozens of “saboteurs” were dragged into court, forced to denounce each other and confess to imaginary crimes—on camera. Crowds watched. Journalists took notes. The message was clear: blame someone—or be blamed.

At the same time, the regime needed to cut costs. But in a state-run economy, “costs” meant people. Everyone was a liability. So the purges began.

Firing someone meant one less mouth to feed. Evicting a family meant freeing up housing. It was brutal accounting, masked as ideology. I explore this in my novel, The Prince of the Soviets, but here’s the heart of it: In that atmosphere, everyone started scanning the room. Who could turn on me? Who can I denounce? Who’s sitting in the spot I want?

You didn’t wait to be targeted. You struck first. Just like the witch trials of medieval Europe: “Better them than me.”

The Hidden Reasons Behind the Regime’s Brutality

But where did this cruelty come from? Why did the Soviet regime turn so violently on its own people?

Two reasons stand out.

First, nearly all of Stalin’s top officials had lived through the traumas of World War I and the Russian Civil War. For nine years, the country was soaked in blood. Mass death was normal. PTSD wasn’t diagnosed—it was lived.

Second, the epidemics.

Between 1918 and 1919, the Spanish flu swept through Russia. No antivirals. No antibiotics. No records. Just death.

And then came typhus. It hit the nervous system. Caused hallucinations, delirium, and long-term psychological damage. Millions endured it. Many never fully recovered.

Imagine an entire country emerging from that—shell-shocked, fevered, half-mad. Is it any wonder the nation began to feel like it had lost its mind? Not really.

Progress and Social Mobility

And yet—despite the terror, despite the trauma—Stalin’s era gave Russia something it had never seen before: real social mobility.

Before the revolution, Russian society was frozen. The gap between rich and poor wasn’t just economic—it was physical, cultural, even linguistic.

Picture a Russian aristocrat at the beginning of the 20th century—educated, multilingual, well-fed, refined.

Now picture a peasant: hungry, illiterate, speaking a dialect the elite saw as an instant mark of inferiority. They didn’t just live differently—they looked like different species.

And there was no ladder connecting them.

Right after the Bolshevik Revolution, power shifted to a new class of idealists and minor clerks—people who could at least read and write. But by the time Stalin rose to power, the political and demographic landscape had shifted. Massive waves of peasants moved into cities. They were sent to night schools and literacy programs and, in many cases, were promoted into positions of real authority. The government actively encouraged this—it wanted “people from the people” to run the state.

And for many, that meant a sudden and astonishing rise. My grandmother’s brother was born into a peasant family. His mother couldn’t read. His father could barely string together a full sentence. And yet their son became a KGB colonel. His wife never worked. Their children grew up with every privilege the Soviet system could offer. My mother remembers visiting them as a child—stunned by the elegance, the wealth, the polished manners. In theory, the USSR rejected bourgeois values. In practice, even the KGB wanted to live like the bourgeoisie.

Sometimes, this mobility came through talent and hard work. Other times, through cruelty and ambition. But the collective memory doesn’t always remember how the sausage was made. What people remember is this: Stalin made the impossible possible. He gave sons and daughters of peasants a path to become “somebody.” And for a nation built on centuries of frozen hierarchies, that felt like a miracle.

Myths of Stalinism


Even today, many Russians believe Stalin kept corruption in check. That officials were shot for abusing power. That life under him was harsh—but fair.

But in a system like Stalin’s, corruption wasn’t the exception. It was the design.

There were no checks and balances, no independent courts, no free press. That meant no one to report abuse—unless the Party allowed it. Occasionally, newspapers would mock low-level bribe-takers with cartoons. But high-ranking officials? Untouchable.

The illusion of “no corruption” came from silence. The Communist Party needed to look flawless, and since all government officials were Party members, maintaining that illusion became an unspoken rule.
Today, when someone says, “Too bad we don’t have Stalin anymore,” they’re usually not calling for mass repression. What they really mean is: “At least things were orderly. At least people were afraid to steal.” It’s not a love for tyranny—it’s frustration with today’s corrupt bureaucrats, mixed with a poor grasp of history.

Another enduring myth is that Stalin turned the USSR into a great power. That he inherited a backward nation of wooden plows and left it with nuclear bombs.

But what does greatness mean?

Yes, the USSR had atomic weapons. Yes, the world feared it. But can you really call it “greatness” when citizens lived in fear, deprivation, and silence?

Stalin’s obsession with global communism led to reckless industrialization and forced modernization—no matter the human cost. And the cost was staggering. He took a vast rural nation and shattered its agricultural base. By the 1960s, the Soviet Union—once the breadbasket of Europe—couldn’t even feed itself.

I remember exploring the abandoned villages in my childhood. Empty homes. Newspapers from the 1950s still scattered on the floors. The elders were dead. Their children had vanished.

There was no baby boom in the USSR. No postwar prosperity. Just decline. If Stalin hadn’t waged war on the countryside, Russia’s population today might be several times larger—and with it, a stronger economy, a broader workforce, a different future.

He never achieved his global revolution. So what did he achieve? He annihilated Russia’s peasantry.
Only in the 21st century—thanks to modern genetics, fertilizers, and machinery—did Russia regain the ability to feed itself. But that progress came not from collective farms or village life. It came from massive agro-industrial complexes, often staffed by migrant workers from Central Asia.

That’s the legacy. Not greatness but a shattered countryside, rebuilt by strangers.

Memory of Stalin

The collective memory of Stalinism is deeply distorted. Back then, criticizing the regime wasn’t just dangerous—it was unthinkable. Even small complaints about injustice could land you in serious trouble. So people adapted. They lived in two worlds: one they inhabited, and one they were supposed to believe in.

If someone in your family was arrested or repressed, you simply didn’t talk about it. My grandfather was sent to a labor camp after World War II. He spent years there. But in our family, no one ever mentioned it. I didn’t learn about it until ten years after he died.

Stories like his were everywhere—but buried. People numbed their trauma, drowned it in vodka, or passed it on silently, without ever telling their children or grandchildren. They were afraid. They had learned: the less you say, the safer you are.

And then there’s another group—those whose ancestors weren’t victims, but perpetrators. The informers. The interrogators. The prison guards. The executioners. I’ve only ever read one personal account where someone admitted that his grandfather was one of those men—and dared to speak publicly about it. Most people either don’t know, or pretend not to. So it begins to feel like all of this wasn’t done by real people—but by aliens. By someone else’s ancestors. Not ours.

That’s where the doubt starts to creep in. Was Stalinism really that bad? Maybe the historians are exaggerating. Maybe the repressed deserved it. Maybe it wasn’t as widespread as they say.

Not long ago, I spoke with a film director who passionately believed this. To him, the horror stories of Stalinism were just Western propaganda. He could visit the Memorial website, where millions of victims are listed by name—archival records, family testimonies, primary sources. But he won’t. Because if he does, he’d have to live in a world where the USSR ate its own children. And that’s too painful to accept.

This is a textbook case of psychological substitution. When the truth is unbearable, we bury it—or we replace it with comforting myths. And in a strange way, it’s understandable. You can’t keep picking at a wound with a rusty nail. Eventually, the wound needs to close.

But when history isn’t reckoned with—when Stalinism is never fully exposed or condemned—the silent message becomes: “This was acceptable. And it still is.”

Historians may know what happened. But most people don’t. And when the facts are scarce, hard to face, or emotionally overwhelming, people turn to something else: aesthetics. The image.

And the Soviet image is powerful. It’s cinematic. It’s monumental. In popular culture, the USSR doesn’t look cruel or suffocating—it looks iconic. That’s what people miss. Not the terror. The style.

And that includes the elite. They’re the ones bankrolling the books, the movies, the museums. However, unlike the Bolsheviks, today’s Russian elites lack a guiding ideology or mission. Their god is money. Their masculine energy is spent on corruption and turf wars. And yet, they still crave the feeling of power and purpose—of belonging to something larger than themselves.

That’s how a strange kind of nostalgia has taken root in Russia: not for what was, but for what never truly existed. A fantasy.

The Return of Stalinism?



So, is Stalinism making a comeback?

Not exactly. What we’re seeing isn’t a revival of ideology. It’s a scavenger hunt for political energy.

Today’s Russian leadership doesn’t have a vision for the future, so they’re borrowing symbols from the past. Stalin’s image isn’t returning because people believe in him. It’s returning because there’s nothing else to believe in.

You can see it in the cultural sphere: the films, the books, the memorials. The people funding them want to feel connected to a “great legacy.” They think Stalinist imagery will please Putin. They see it as a loyalty signal. Meanwhile, the artists and writers are just doing their jobs, cashing their paychecks. Most of the public isn’t even paying attention.

The pattern is familiar. It’s the same reflex we saw during the war in Ukraine. A refusal to see. A culture of looking away. That habit was forged under Stalin. People learned to look away when their neighbors were arrested. When lies were broadcast on the radio and later on TV. When injustice marched past their door. If you didn’t see it—if it didn’t touch you—you could keep living your life.

There won’t be a real return of Stalinism. There’s nothing to build a cult around. No unifying idea. No wave of idealistic youth ready to die for a dream. There’s just an aging society, clinging to a past that at least looked like it had meaning.

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