Can Russia Handle the Truth About Stalin? Will Putin Allow It to Emerge?

Stalin’s shadow won’t disappear until criminal case

launched against him – investigator

A demonstrator takes a selfie with a portrait of Josef Stalin. © Reuters / Andrey Volkov

A former high-ranking investigator is fighting for a criminal case to be launched against Joseph Stalin, insisting that the legal evaluation of the ex-Soviet leader’s crimes is the only way to finally end his cult in Russia.

Igor Stepanov, who used to be a major crimes detective, addressed the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee, saying that Stalin must be considered “an organizer of mass killings, meaning genocide of Orthodox clergy and other citizens.”

His accusations are based on an NKVD (the USSR’s secret police) order from July 1937 to repress former kulaks (wealthy farmers deprived of their property), ex-convicts, and other “anti-Soviet elements.” The paper, which was signed by Stalin himself, includes the precise number of those to be purged, with 82,700 to face firing squads and 193,400 to be sent to labor camps.

Among those persecuted were around 20 of Stepanov’s relatives, most of whom were priests.

His plea has been rejected by several local investigative bodies already, but he persistently appeals the rulings. He says he will go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to see that justice is served.

Stepanov said he’s well aware that a criminal case against Stalin can’t be launched “due to the death of the suspect” in 1953. But this was never his aim, as the former investigator is only looking for an official legal evaluation of the ex-Soviet leader’s actions. According to Russian law, prosecutors are obliged to carry out the evaluation before rejecting the case.

“Now, no such legal evaluation exists and that’s why the cult of Stalin remains,” Stepanov said.

Though it has been 66 years since he passed away, Stalin remains a widely discussed and highly controversial figure in Russia. Many argue that he led the Soviet Union to victory against the Nazis and created major industries in the country from scratch, but others accuse him of masterminding the merciless purge of hundreds of thousands of dissidents and creating a personality cult around himself.

His approval rating is currently the highest since the USSR collapsed in 1991. A poll in April revealed that more than 50 percent of the population consider Stalin a “positive figure.”

In May, a bust of the ex-Soviet leader was placed outside the Communist Party HQ in Siberia’s third largest city, Novosibirsk. 

The crimes of Stalin haven’t been officially condemned in Russia and what Stepanov is doing is “quite innovative,” Nikita Petrov, from the Memorial human rights group, which among other things investigates the purge of 1936-38, told Kommersant.

“In our country, there’s some special reverence towards Stalin; an unwillingness to admit that he was an ordinary criminal,” he said.

The only case investigated was the Katyn massacre of 1940, in which thousands of Polish POWs were executed, Petrov said. But the blame was placed on NKBD boss Lavrenty Beria and his associates.

Of course he was no ordinary criminal! How many thousands of Mennonites did he starve to death by stealing all their crops and selling them abroad? 

It was the Russian people who defeated Hitler, not Stalin. Stalin was a monster! He eliminated most of his own family because of his paranoia. Communism and paranoia are fused together.

Former Russian Minister Detained Over Massive Embezzlement, May Face 20 Years in Prison

Corruption is Everywhere - You Better Believe in Russian Politics

FILE PHOTO: Mikhail Abyzov © Sputnik / Iliya Pitalev

Former Russian minister, Nikolay Abyzov, who only left the cabinet last year, was detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) over accusations of organizing a criminal group to embezzle 4 billion rubles (around $15.5 million).

The investigators believe Abyzov and his accomplices obtained the money by swindling the shareholders of two major energy companies in Russia’s Novosibirsk Region. The funds were then transferred abroad through offshore firms, which the ex-minister was a beneficial owner between 2011 and 2014.

The actions of the criminal group that Abyzov “organized and headed” have jeopardized the energy security and stable economic growth of several Russian Regions, the Investigative Committee said.

The probe against the 46-year-old is head by the top branch in the Investigative Committee, which only deals with high priority cases, with the assistance of the FSB.

Abyzov is charged with organizing a criminal group, with the offense carrying a prison term of up to 20 years, under Russian law. The investigators say they’ll ask the court to put him in custody.

A source told Interfax that the ex-minister was recently living abroad – in Italy and the US – and the FSB “operatives had to lure him to Russia.” He didn’t elaborate on how the detention happened.

The ex-ministers’ lawyer, Aleksandr Ansis, told the media that his client "categorically refuses to acknowledge his guilt."

Maybe it's just the translation, but that sure sounds like a curious way of stating his innocence.

Abyzov began his business career in the 1990s and occupied key positions in several of the country’s largest energy companies, including Unified Energy System of Russia and E4 Group. He’s one of the richest people in the country, with Forbes estimating his wealth at $600 million last year.

He joined the Russian government in 2012 under Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and maintained the ministerial post until May 2018. The man oversaw the functioning of the Open Government, a new approach which was introduced to make the Russian state more transparent and allow the authorities to discuss its initiatives with the society.

This just gets more hilarious by the line.

Vladimir Putin was informed of Abyzov’s case in advance, Kremlin press-secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said.

Medvedev’s office also said that the PM was aware of the situation, but pointed out that Abyzov is being investigated “for the activities that aren’t related to his work as a government member.”

Of course, no-one in the government would ever be guilty of corruption!!! 

Nemtsov Murder Mastermind Named

The site of the murder of politician Boris Nemtsov, who was killed on Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge in downtown Moscow
© Vladimir Astapkovich / Sputnik

Russia’s Investigative Committee has pressed final charges against the suspected murderers of prominent opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, including the hit’s suspected organizer Ruslan Mukhutdinov, currently at large and on the international wanted list.

The committee also said in the Tuesday statement that it plans to start a separate criminal probe against Mukhutdinov and a number of yet unidentified persons who could also have been involved in Nemtsov’s assassination.

Also on Tuesday, investigators pressed final charges of a contract murder by an organized group and illegal purchase, possession and carrying of firearms against the four detained suspects. They said that the suspects’ complicity in the killing had been confirmed by over 70 forensic experiments, testimonies of witnesses, CCTV records and many documents seized at the suspects’ places of residence.

The law enforcers added that the lawyers representing the prosecution and the defense would receive all case materials in January.

Earlier, Russian mass media revealed Mukhutdinov as the primary suspect in Nemtsov’s killing on these grounds he had been put on the Russian federal and international wanted lists. One of the suspected killers, Zaur Dadaev, reportedly told investigators that the murder was revenge for Nemtsov’s “negative comments on Muslims and Islam,” in particular, the public condemnation of Islamists who killed the journalists from the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France. However, a short time later Dadaev retracted his testimony. The other suspects denied any involvement in the case.

In comments on the Investigative Committee’s statement, the lawyer representing Nemtsov’s family said he disagreed with the main conclusion.

“Mukhutdinov is just one of the organizers and he is one on the lowest rank. He only used to work as a driver for [one of the suspects] Ruslan Geremeyev,” he told RIA Novosti.

A defense lawyer representing Zaur Dadaev told Kommersant radio that the charges against Mukhutdinov were “unfounded” and added that he and his client intended to demand a trial by jury. Russia allows jury trials in cases where the maximum punishment is 10 years or more. The final verdict is still made by the judge, but it cannot be harsher than the one passed by the jury.

Boris Nemtsov was a regional governor and a deputy PM under President Boris Yeltsin. In recent years he had turned into an opposition politician occupying a seat in the legislature of central Russia’s Yaroslavl Region.

In February this year Nemtsov was shot dead while crossing the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, near the Moscow Kremlin. The assassination prompted a thousands-strong march in the Russian capital, with demands to find and punish the killers.

President Putin personally promised in a public address that everything would be done to punish those responsible for the organization and execution of the murder.